contradictions and paradoxes
This may be my last comment on Jack Good’s book, The Dishonest Church
“In the transition to the Conjunctive stage one begins to make peace with the tension arising from the realization that truth must be approached from a number of different directions and angles of vision. Faith must learn to maintain the tensions between these multiple perspectives, refusing to collapse them in one direction or another. In this sense, faith must begin to come to terms with indissoluble paradoxes: the strength found in apparent weakness; the leadership that is possible from the margins of society… the immanence and the transcendence of God… In what Paul Ricoeur has called a second or willed naivete, persons of the Conjunctive stage manifest a readiness to enter into the rich dwellings of meaning that true symbols, ritual, and myth offer. As a correlate of these qualities, this stage exhibits a principled openness to the truths of other religious and faith traditions”.
In this context, Good talks about “cognitive dissonance” that exists in the minds of believers, that on the one hand they believe in an almighty God who is good, but on the other hand experience a perplexing world of pain that they can never understand. At some point one side of this contradiction has to give. Good admits on that he and his wife “had given up belief in an omnipotent God” (p. 44) because of this tension. An omnipotent God and a world of suffering: this, in my mind, is one of the indissoluble paradoxes Fowler speaks of, and not necessarily a contradiction.
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Understanding life through myths and legends that inform our souls is a healthy and time tested approach to life and does not require the cognitive dissonance that you are talking about. One could stop defending the indefensible and search their soul for a more logical understanding of life’s riddles. We all know the “truth” because it is written on our hearts: we are all one in the “body” of the christ, the spirit of love and the “divinity” we all share.
Richard Rohr has an approach rarely found in our modern religious world. He says life is both/and not either/or. He believes the paradoxes of christianity and other religion lead us to this. When Jesus tells us to love ourselves as we are he is telling us to embrace both the light and the shadow of our existence, for example. I find a lot of beauty in this unconditional love.
I’ve searched my soul Jeff, and it is black and lacks understanding. What do you think about Anselm’s conclusion: “Faith seeks understanding”… that is, knowledge doesn’t lead to faith, but faith seeks to understand, which leads to knowledge?
I have searched my soul and I have found both light and shadow. I am both dead and alive. Brilliant and dark. I am selfish and selfless. Loving and hateful. Ignorant and wise. How do I pick a side and say that aspect of me is “true”?
I think that quote is more religious circular reasoning. I believe that salvation, or the awakening from the ’sleep’ of ignorance, is gained through knowledge, not just faith. We can’t gain knowledge by putting faith in something that doesn’t stand up to reason. Religion is continually appealling to us to abandon our faculties and make a leap to something that does not make sense. Faith applied to the mysteries that we can’t grasp is not the same as faith as a belief in something we know to be illogical.
Wisdom is available to the entire human race, not just to theologians and those capable of illogical gymnastics. Mystics, who I have found in abundance in the catholic church ironically, are wise to identify “mysteries” in their faith. This is in stark opposition to the evangelicals who demand righteousness and a dogmatic understanding of the unknowable.
Jeff: not all evangelicals.
True. As I said “the evangelicals who demand righteousness and a dogmatic understanding of the unknowable.” But not all evangelicals. That would be a bit presumptuous, now wouldn’t it?
Omnipotent god and suffering are not necessarily a contradiction. That is a complete and utter bullshit comment. David you need to get real. I take the liberty of quoting Sam Harris, whose statements I adopt:
We agree that, if one of us is right, then the other is wrong. The Bible either is the word of God, or it isn’t. Either Jesus offers humanity the one, true path to salvation (John 14:6), or he does not. We agree that to be a real Christian is to believe that all other faiths are in error and profoundly so. If Christianity is correct, and I persist in my unbelief, I should expect to suffer the torments of hell. Worse still, I have persuaded others, many close to me, to persist in a state of unbelief. They, too, will languish in “everlasting fire” (Matthew 25:41). If the claims of Christianity are true, I will have realized the worst possible outcome of a human life. The fact that my continuous and public rejection of Christianity does not worry me should suggest to you just how unsatisfactory I think your reasons for being a Christian are.
You believe that the Bible is the literal (or inspired) word of God and that Jesus is the Son of God-and you believe these propositions because you think they are true, not merely because they make you feel good. You may wonder how it is possible for a person like myself to find these sorts of assertions ridiculous. While it is famously difficult for atheists and believers to communicate about these matters, I am confident that I can give you a very clear sense of what it feels like to be an atheist.Consider: every devout Muslim has the same reasons for being a Muslim that you now have for being a Christian. And yet, you know exactly what it is like not to find these reasons compelling. On virtually every page, the Qur’an declares that it is the perfect word of the Creator of the universe. Muslims believe this as fully as you believe the Bible’s account of itself. There is a vast literature describing the life of Muhammad that, from the Muslim point of view, proves his unique status as the Prophet of God. While Muhammad did not claim to be divine, he claimed to offer the most perfect revelation of God’s will. He also assured his followers that Jesus was not divine (Qur’an 5:71-75; 19:30-38) and that anyone who believed otherwise would spend eternity in hell. Muslims are convinced that Muhammad’s pronouncements on these subjects, as on all others, are infallible.
Why don’t you find these claims convincing? Why don’t you lose any sleep over whether or not you should convert to Islam? Please take a moment to reflect on this. You know exactly what it is like to be an atheist with respect to Islam. Isn’t it obvious that Muslims are not being honest in their evaluation of the evidence? Isn’t it obvious that anyone who thinks that the Qur’an is the perfect word of the Creator of the universe has not read the book very critically? Isn’t it obvious that Muslims have developed a mode of discourse that seeks to preserve dogma, generation after generation, rather than question it? Yes, these things are obvious. Understand that the way you view Islam is precisely the way every Muslim views Christianity. And it is the way I view all religions.
Christians regularly assert that the Bible predicts future historical events. For instance, Deuteronomy 28:64 says, “The Lord will scatter you among the nations from one end of the earth to the other.” Jesus says, in Luke 19:43-44, “The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” We are meant to believe that these utterances predict the subsequent history of the Jews with such uncanny specificity so as to admit of only a supernatural explanation. It is on the basis of such reasoning that 44 percent of the American population now believes that Jesus will return to earth to judge the living and the dead sometime in the next fifty years.
But just imagine how breathtakingly specific a work of prophecy could be if it were actually the product of omniscience. If the Bible were such a book, it would make specific, falsifiable predictions about human events. You would expect it to contain a passage like, “In the latter half of the twentieth century, humankind will develop a globally linked system of computers – the principles of which I set forth in Leviticus – and this system shall be called the Internet.” The Bible contains nothing remotely like this. In fact, it does not contain a single sentence that could not have been written by a man or woman living in the first century.
Take a moment to imagine how good a book could be if it were written by the Creator of the universe. Such a book could contain a chapter on mathematics that, after two thousand years of continuous use, would still be the richest source of mathematical insight the earth has ever seen. Instead, the Bible contains some very obvious mathematical errors. In two places, for instance, the Good Book gives the ratio of a circumference of a circle to its diameter as simply 3 (1 Kings 7: 23-26 and 2 Chronicles 4: 2-5). We now refer to this constant relation with the Greek letter p. While the decimal expansion of p runs to infinity – 3.1415926535 . . . – we can calculate it to any degree of accuracy we like. Centuries before the oldest books of the Bible were written, both the Egyptians and Babylonians approximated p to a few decimal places. And yet the Bible – whether inerrant or divinely inspired – offers us an approximation that is terrible even by the standards of the ancient world. Needless to say, many religious people have found ingenious ways of rationalizing this. And yet, these rationalizations cannot conceal the obvious deficiency of the Bible as a source of mathematical insight. It is absolutely true to say that, if Archimedes had written a chapter of the Bible, the text would bear much greater evidence of the author’s “omniscience.”
Why doesn’t the Bible say anything about electricity, about DNA, or about the actual age and size of the universe? What about a cure for cancer? Millions of people are dying horribly from cancer at this very moment, many of them children. When we fully understand the biology of cancer, this understanding will surely be reducible to a few pages of text. Why aren’t these pages, or anything remotely like them, found in the Bible? The Bible is a very big book. There was room for God to instruct us on how to keep slaves and sacrifice a wide variety of animals. Please appreciate how this looks to one who stands outside the Christian faith. It is genuinely amazing how ordinary a book can be and still be thought the product of omniscience.
Of course, your reasons for believing in God may be more personal than those I have discussed above. I have no doubt that your acceptance of Christ coincided with some very positive changes in your life. Perhaps you regularly feel rapture or bliss while in prayer. I do not wish to denigrate any of these experiences. I would point out, however, that billions of other human beings, in every time and place, have had similar experiences – but they had them while thinking about Krishna, or Allah, or the Buddha, while making art or music, or while contemplating the sheer beauty of nature. There is no question that it is possible for us to have profoundly transformative experiences. And there is no question that it is possible for us to misinterpret these experiences and to further delude ourselves about the nature of the universe.
If you have read my letter this far, one of two things has happened. Either you have perceived some error that is genuinely fatal to my argument, or you have ceased to be a Christian
Well, I think Sam is wrong on a lot of points but it’s good food for thought. An un-examined life is a complete waste.
As a simply human and imperfect parent who nevertheless loves his children enough to die for them, I can completely understand the existance of a being who could stop suffering, pain, loss but doesn’t. I could have saved my kids from lots I didn’t and I’m glad. And looking back on my own personal worst times I have to say that they were some of my best for growth, character and meaning.
A more difficult question for me and one that troubles my relationship with God far more is not, ‘why suffering’? It’s ‘why healing’ or ‘help’? Why are some people healed, outside or inside of a treatment process, and others are not? Who do some get miraculously - or ‘coincidentally- saved and others don’t? That’s the hard question for me.
I have come to a conclusion: there can be no real dialogue between athiests and christians. At least not here. Jake (how he became “Sam”, I have no idea) just provided the most reasoned argument I have read so far in this blog and it was responded to with just another teaspoon of fluff.
Is there anyone who has a reasoned response to the points Jake has made? I am starting to conclude that reason and logic are not attributes most christians value.
So I guess this is where tolerance is required. We tolerate each other so we can live at peace together. But I do not have any more hope that true dialogue is possible.
I am sorry, David. As your friend I do not mean to offend you. But this discussion, for all of its promise, doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.
Jeff what constitutes real dialogue to you? What constitutes reason and logic? How can you expect true dialogue when you seem to have concluded that Christians are illogical and unreasonable, and partial to delivering “fluff”. Christianity defies reason and yet embodies it. I don’t have a problem (not insinuating that you do) believing in a mysterious thing.
But I digress. I’m really not interested in a philosophical pissing contest. Maybe you’re right that conversations can’t really go anywhere when it comes to atheists and Christians. It’s all too deep.
I can see why no one’s touching this with a ten foot pole! Jake and Jeff make the assumption that reason trumps faith every time. I don’t buy it. Admittedly, there are lots of areas of my faith that are “holey” but it’s because I’m a thinking, rational AND spiritual human being (and one that allows for flaws in my faith). I find the reasoning part easy (although not as awe-inspiring as Jake’s). It’s the faith part that is the challenge.
But Jeff, what kind of tolerance are you talking about? Many of your responses seem dismissive rather than tolerant. C’mon man, “fluff”?
Jeff,
Jake didn’t become Sam he quoted him. Pay attention!
Hmmm. Fluff, eh?
Here are a few more thoughts. It may not rise to the standard, maybe just fluffier…
From Jakes quote of Sam:
Paragraph 1: This isn’t reasonable or logical, only insulting.
Paragraph 2: We don’t agree, or at least I don’t agree that “to be a real Christian is to believe that all other faiths are in error and profoundly so.” Having said that, I can also understand how a person would get that impression from the Christianity they see on TV. As to hell, there are as many takes on what hell is really about as there are Christians.
Paragraph 3: I don’t wonder how it is possible for anyone to think “these…assertions” are ridiculous. I understand, I used to think the same thing. I didn’t spontaneously spring forth a follower of Jesus.
Paragraph 4: I find these claims (of Islam) intriguing and so I’ve read as much of the Koran as I have been able to. I’ve never lost sleep over the claims, I seldom ‘lose sleep’, I always seem to know where to find it. But I have considered the claims of Mohammed. Again, I didn’t spring from the womb a Christian.
Here I disagree: “the way you view Islam is precisely the way every Muslim views Christianity.” I don’t think they should all die as enemies of the faith. While this has been practiced in the name of Jesus it is not the way of Jesus. And not all Muslims view Christianity a certain way any more than all Christian view Muslims a certain way. I also don’t think they are entirely wrong or completely cut off from God. I have a friend who is a Muslim. He’s one of the funniest guys I know and completely committed to his faith thoughtfully and in practice. I respect his faith in Allah, I try to learn from his faith and practice because I believe all truth belongs to God. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the way Sam views my faith based on what he’s written here.
Paragraph 5: I don’t follow this paragraph at all other than it serves to set up his next paragraph/argument. “It is on the basis of such reasoning…” What does that mean? Again, it’s all about the next paragraph where he wants to ‘poo-poo’ prophecy. I don’t think 44% of the American population believes that Jesus will return. They would all be living quite differently.
Paragraph 6: “If the Bible were such a book, it would make specific, falsifiable predictions about human events.” This does not follow. This is not reason or logic it is merely supposition. It presupposes the intent of God is to prove his existence. God is about as concerned with giving us proof he exists as I am about proving to you that I exist. And did he really mean ‘falsifiable’?
Paragraph 7: Again, this line of ‘reasoning’ is based on a faulty assumption. Sam has created a ‘straw man’ that’s fairly easy to cut down. Sam wants the Bible to be a textbook that passed from God to man and through translations by men to give us a book that covers details like math with precision. This, Sam says, would be what a god would do. This presupposes that Sam’s opinion is the only possibility or even the best possibility. This is a little like taking a statement from the gospels, “and the whole town turned out…” and expect that we’ll be given an actual census record. That wasn’t the point of the telling. I will be happy to say that I’ll not do any rationalizing at all and proclaim wherever Sam would like that the Bible is NOT a math textbook or even a good place to go to learn about pi. This would only be reasonable if the claim of the book was that it was the greatest text for mathematical principle the world would ever see. It doesn’t. Again, what Sam appears to be doing is creating an argument he can tear up but it’s not an argument someone is actually making. At least nobody on this board.
Paragraph 8: “Please appreciate how this looks to one who stands outside the Christian faith. It is genuinely amazing how ordinary a book can be and still be thought the product of omniscience.” I appreciate it. But it’s not thought to be the product of omniscience for the reasons Sam states nor un-ordinary for the presence of things Sam is looking for. Followers of Jesus and people who don’t follow Jesus have found insight into themselves and others through the words of Scripture, they’ve found courage in frightening times (I’m not talking about ‘we get to go to heaven’ ‘life is so scarey for us poor weaklings’ stuff), they’ve stood up to tyranny because of it when they’ve been at their best, and yes, used it to create tyranny when they are at their worst. The Bible has been read, criticized, burned, hidden, chained up, sold out, died for and killed for, precisely because it is not ordinary. Why doesn’t the Bible answer any of Sam’s questions? Does that really seem like logic or reason? The absence of something does not prove or disprove the claim of God to man inspiration of the book. Hey, why didn’t he put all the details of my life in the book and write a chapter that included who we should all marry, where we should all live, where to find deposits of gold or other useful stuff? It’s not what the book is about. That’s why we meet the author.
Paragraph 9: A very reasonable paragraph. However, I think the sentence “I have no doubt that your acceptance of Christ coincided with some very positive changes in your life.” May not really be true at all. It’s like the crazy logic about homosexuality not being a choice (and I’m NOT saying it is, I’m just saying the logic of this particular reasoning is flawed…) Who, they ask, would choose a lifestyle that would get them persecuted, ridiculed and sometimes even killed? Um, Christians. Many, many people choose Jesus and things only get worse, much worse. It’s not about blissing out or catching a spiritual buzz for everyone. For many people, people like C.S. Lewis, they come to faith in Jesus because everything else, every other door, has slammed closed and they come kicking and screaming into the kingdom.
I hope this rates a little higher than ‘fluff’ Jeff! I think dialogue is possible unless you’re trying to convert me and I’m trying to convert you. Then it’s just propaganda. I’m not trying to convert you or Jake, are you trying to convert me?
The only conversion attempt is to a real discussion and this definitely qualifies. I don’t have the time this morning to participate, Brian, but I definitely appreciate what you have written.
The Bible is not about “proof of omniscience.” To say so, is to come at it with a preconception–if God is like this, “his writings” must be like that.
God is relational. The Bible was written relationally. The Bible is invitation to relationship. It can be approached intellectually, but to only approach the Bible intellectually is comparable to eating pizza with your tastes buds off.
As Brain M. says in his Paragraph 6 paragraph, the point of the Bible is not for God to prove his own existence.