So, what if somebody agrees God started all of this, but that His will cannot be known by finite, fallible humans?
Personally, I think this results in the same moral issues I spoke about in "Risen from Apes" and "Teaching Little Apes"--namely, how can we make ANY judgment calls if we don't agree on a standard? How can we determine right and wrong? Sure, if there is a God, we may not be glorified monkeys or freak accidents, but we still don't know WHY we're here....right? Isn't His existence practically useless unless we know something about Him?
My basic point is, all of us lives with the belief that some things are "bad" and others are "good," but--if there isn't a God, or there is one but He can't be found--where do we get those ideas?
Why wouldn't we get ideas of good/bad from basic survival instincts? Marrying your brother = bad because then your kid has terrible genetic problems. Eating that berry that made me vomit = bad. We have instincts to protect our children. If we eat all the unhealthy food in our house, we will fee sick. I believe in learning to "listen to your body" (which is sort of connected to God, because it's pretty cool we can feel what's good and bad for us! And I think that varies from person to person). I don't think God making a rule in a book that I'm supposed to believe He wrote (????) makes much sense if my body telling me that I'm full works just as well. In my opinion, the Bible has wisdom in it because God gives us wisdom, not because the Bible is written by God.
ReplyDeleteI love this quote:
If God wants to reveal life to you, he won't need a book. (Monsieur Ibrahim)
But you're talking more about empathy I think. I believe we know God in two ways:
1. Our conscience.
2. Our brains.
(They are incredibly interconnected, and that's fine.)
I think pretty much everything is subjective. Your reading of the Bible. Your logic about God. My logic about social justice. My logic about God. Etc. So I am very suspicious when anyone claims they can know Absolute Truth. Maybe they sincerely believe what they feel, and I think they should act on that. But we mess up. We learn new things. We change our minds. We're imperfect.
I think evil is just the absence of love, and I don't necessarily think that God is all powerful. I don't know how the universe was created. There are lots of things that confuse me.
I'm tired and it's impossible to put all of my thoughts on this neatly into one comment, but hopefully it gives you some idea of where I'm coming from.
Wow, I thought putting this question in a seperate post would simplify things. But we've managed to open up several lines of discussion all over again, haven't we! And here I sit trying to figure out which point to address... :)
ReplyDeleteYes, our bodies tell us a lot. And I like that you said God has given us wisdom, consciences, etc. In fact, the Bible says God reveals himself to all men, in things around them (nature) and in their own hearts. I agree with you there.
But what about when that pesky fallibility kicks in, and your brain disagrees with my brain? For instance, the question of whether or not God is all-powerful seems kind of important to me, but people argue about it all the time. Another example: if God DID come to earth as a man, reveal some truths while he was here, and instruct his earthly followers to write it down, then the stuff they wrote would be a big deal, too. Right? But God cannot be both all-powerful and limited at the same time. The Bible cannot be both His word and NOT His word at the same time. So, I wonder, how do you determine your beliefs in a case when subjectivity isn't an option?
There are many who share your suspicions about absolute authority or absolute truth. But, I would argue that--ultimately--everyone answers to one. We either bend to the will of an outside source--a god--or we make decisions based on our own logic, opinions, and feelings. In that case, a person is his own final authority...
I found a video the other day that hits this subject. In fact, since it seems relevent, I think I'll post it.
Let's first separate out the Bible from God being omnipotent.
ReplyDeleteFirst the Bible: All you *really* know is that people have TOLD you that the Bible is God's word. You choose to believe that. There are many holy texts, including the Quran and the Torah. Maybe it's God's word. Maybe not. I don't think God is going to expect me to fairly arbitrarily choose one holy text. Plus, your interpretation of the Bible is ALWAYS subjective. That's inherent in being human and having a brain and you use your brain to interpret the world --- so EVERYTHING is subjective. So, I don't really think an Absolute Truth matters if our brains are not capable anything but subjectivity. Maybe an Absolute Truth exists, or maybe it takes many forms, or maybe it doesn't exist at all. Impossible to know.
To me omnipotence matters a lot in a philosophical sense but practically does not. I try to be the best person I can be. I learn all I can from others, try to analyze my own motives and thinking, try to focus on my conscience, etc. That's all I can do. That's really all anyone can do, but we just call it different things, like praying or meditating or whatever. The Bible guides you in these thought processes more than me. I think as long as we are critically thinking (using the brains God gave us) and listening to our consciences (caring for others and other universal truths), we are listening to God the best we can --- and that's a very internal judgment. I can't judge if you are being the best person you can be. I can judge people for how they treat others (practical societal perspective), but in a spiritual sense, I can't judge.
In the end, you are making decisions based on your own logic, opinions, and feelings because you choose (free will) to value some information over other information. (Like I said, regardless of whether or not Truth is absolute, our brains are subjective. We have no Truth Sensor, otherwise everyone concerned with morality and Truth would be one religion.) There is nothing objectively special about the Bible that makes it a clear authority. You grew up respecting it as a moral authority. I don't argue with that decision, but it's a decision you make. You can't claim that you are listening to God and that others aren't.
In reference to individual brains and supposed "subjectivity," I believe we are talking about two different things here. Truth and interpretation of truth.
ReplyDeleteTruth is a statement or belief that lines up with reality. If I say, "There is a dog on my porch," it's true if there is a dog on my porch. (By the way, that statement is not true.) :)
Now, we may argue about whether or not a statement lines up with reality--and some people even demand ridiculous amounts of proof before they agree there's a dog on the porch. BUT, the truth about it (the way it REALLY IS) cannot be changed, even if somebody's perception is off. Either there is a dog on the porch, or there is not.
You have made the conclusion that, because individual brains and feelings work differently, "everything is subjective." But that's confusing truth with perception of truth. You COULD say, "We have interpreted/perceived things differently." But when comparing two mutually-exclusive statements, one has to be the CORRECT one, or the one which lines up with reality. One of those is the truth, even if we can't agree which it is.
In reality, either God is or isn't Omnipotent. Some may choose to suspend judgment. That is, simply not answer the question. But, truth or reality is constant and unchanged even if we go to our graves claiming we don't know it.
Now, it's a different situation entirely if someone claims that reality--as in the way things really are--changes from one person to the next. If you try to say there is a dog on the porch AND there isn't one, too, then there's no point in debating any longer. That's not logic. That's latching on to an impossible wild card. When someone finds something they don't like--they can simply declare, "The same rules don't apply to me."
Along those lines, when you use phrases like, "To me..." or "in my opinion," you seem to imply it's okay for you to believe one thing is true while I believe the complete opposite. And the fact is, one of us must be wrong if our statements contradict. So, you may suspend judgment and decline to answer at all. (Then, hopefully, allow me to explain why I HAVE picked a side.) Or, you can pick the affirmative or the negative position.
To say, "I'm not sure," really says nothing at all about reality.
Relating to Anonymous' first point about "good" just being a helpful survival instinct. There is a difference between "good" meaning "advantageous" vs "morally right." (Anonymous seems to switch horses in the middle of the argument - one minute "good" means one thing, the next, it means something else. The result is some well meant, but fuzzy thinking.) CS Lewis addressed this very question in Mere Christianity decades ago. He pointed out that the problem is that choosing the morally "good" thing is sometimes NOT in our best/survival interests. (For example, people do noble and heroic things that cost them their lives. Even small "good" things that we know we "should" do are very often the opposite of our natural instincts.)
ReplyDeleteSecondly, some inconvenient truths about the Bible: The Bible itself claims some 4,000 times to be the Word of God (sometimes directly, as in 2 Tim 3:16 and a few other verses; other times by phrases like, "this is the word of the Lord/this says the Lord." No other Holy book actually claims to be the word of God, although people tend to assume they do. The Torah, by the way, is actually part of the Bible - the Old Testament Books that are known as the Law. The Bible is unique (in the true, original meaning of "unique," that is "ONE of a kind," not merely "unusual") for numerous other reasons. To not believe the Bible is actually unreasonable - what is this non-belief based on? I'm afraid it isn't based on knowledge. At least not first hand knowledge. I think we are easily deceived on this point. Because Bibles are all around, because most people own one, and because we know some Bible stories, we tend to think we know what's in the Bible. I know I did before I became a Christian - but was pretty shocked when I actually sat down and read it for myself. All kinds of things I thought were in there were not. And there were things I read that I had never heard of. I would encourage/challenge anyone who wants to comment on its validity to at least read it. (It only takes 48 hours to read the whole thing.) Because if a. you read it and b. you examine it and the associated and readily available evidence (history, archaeology, its wisdom, its (100% accurate) prophecies) - you would be REALLY hard pressed to deny that it is what it claims to be.
The third thing Anonymous raises is something called "Epistemology" which is the fancy word for "how do we know (things/anything)?" aka what is your source of truth? That's a really good question. Too big to address in this comment, but perhaps we can continue the discussion next time. :)
PS I do appreciate Amanda starting the discussion, and Anonymous for joining it and for making an honest attempt to wrestle with important questions.
You're right that there are different definitions of "good" that I discussed. I brought up a few because I think they interlink. Another huge topic that I didn't have time to explore fully in my last post.
ReplyDeleteAs far as it being unreasonable not to believe that the Bible is God's word, I can only respond: REALLY???? (except we all know I will say more haha.) So just because a book says it is God's word we should believe it???? Just because something is consistent with history doesn't mean it's God's word either. (For the record, I don't know that much about how accurate the Bible is to history, and therefore am not going to argue about, mostly because I don't feel I need to for my larger argument to be legitimate.) I don't need to know EVERYTHING that's in the Bible to logically conclude that we can't know it's God's word.
While I haven't read the entire Bible cover to cover, I do know that certain parts of it are not practiced by the vast majority of Christians, which relates back to Amanda's post "Chiseling Our God." I'm assuming that since you all believe the Bible is God's word, and we shouldn't put our own "spin" on it, then you take the Bible literally.
One example of many troubling quotes from the Bible:
"For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him." Leviticus 20:9
Since I doubt anyone on this blog believes we should execute children who curse their parents, I'm going to call your bluff on chiseling God.
Okay, upon re-reading this post, it seems to me your direct question is, "How can the Bible be God's Word if it has inconsistencies within it?" (Is that right? Stop me before I go on some tirade which has nothing to do with your question!) :)
ReplyDeleteYou're right that you don't have to read the entire Bible to find apparent inconsistencies, but the academically honest thing would be to evaluate the text before picking it apart. (Otherwise, it's like a movie critic writing a review based on the preview he saw on TV.)
Anyway, as I said in my other comment, there is a post about the Bible in the works, so be on the watch for that. And I will be happy to answer why I don't execute parent-cursers and still am not a god-chiseler. :) (er, well, all of us have been guilty of assuming things about God--so the point of the video is that EVERYONE chisels their god. But, you get what I'm saying, I think.)
In the meantime, consider what HJ said about reading the Bible cover to cover. For all you know, there's a verse at the end which says, "That thing about putting people to death was just a joke!" (Spoiler: such a verse doesn't exist. But only someone who has read the entire thing would know.)
I completely see your point about reading the entire Bible. I'm not going to do that because I don't believe it is God's word and I'd rather read CS Lewis's Mere Christianity in my spare time. But point taken.
ReplyDeleteMy distrust of the Bible has two levels:
1. Logically, I don't believe it's God's word. There's definitely no proof and when I logically consider it, I am not tempted to take that leap of faith. I'm really excited about reading your reasons for believing in the Bible, though.
2. Even if we concluded it is God's word, there are the aforementioned contradictions and elements that people do not take literally (thus the chiseling of God scenario). Then ON TOP of that, there is my issue with the concept of interpretation. There cannot possibly be one right way to live if there are many interpretations of the Bible. I'll reference your discussion of books requiring more imagination than film. We read the same words, but our brains interpret those words. Back to my whole "Who is colorblind?" issue.
I could go on, but I'll stop. I just wanted to clarify that my doubts are two-pronged: Logic external to and within the actual text of the Bible.