"The Case for God" has Arrived

I have recently received a review copy of Karen Armstrong's The Case for God in the mail and will be starting to read it tonight with an eye towards getting a review up sometime in the next week. After just having finished a horror book about religion (The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet) I am looking forward to reading about a much more positive way of looking at it!

Morality, Abraham, and God

James McGrath posted a few days ago on the Abraham and Isaac sacrifice story. It made me think of an argument I often hear from Christian apologists about the existence of (a certain type of) God. It is especially common on the radio show "Unbelievable?" The host, Justin Brierley, seems very fond of it (or a variation of it at least).

The general argument I hear goes something like this: we have a common set of moral standards that human beings seem to agree are pretty much "absolute." These "absolute" standards must come from without and not from within human society - moral standards formed within human society can only be "relative." The most logical outside source for these moral standards (they claim) is God. Only with God setting a standard for goodness can we all agree on what it is.

"Unbelievable?" usually has a non-Christian (often an atheist) in discussion with a Christian. At some point in the discussion the Christian will often bring up a practical example of the above. The Christian usually describes some horrendous moral evil, perhaps killing a child, and will confront the atheist (who has usually been arguing that morality is relative to humanity in some sense) with a question like: "surely you would agree that the killing of an innocent toddler is always wrong?" The atheist will say "well, it is wrong to me. I still think it is relative though." And the Christian will say "Aha! That is why atheism fails! Without God there are no absolute morals and you can't even admit that killing an innocent toddler is wrong! But we all know, in our hearts, that killing an innocent toddler is wrong. We know it is not relative, but an absolute wrong. And the fact that we know that is best explained by the existence of God and His set of absolute moral standards that we feel in our hearts."

There is so much wrong with all that it is hard to know where to begin, but one thing that always occurs to me when I hear this argument is the Abraham story. This is because it seems to me that Christians have the very same problem coming from the "we know in our hearts that X is wrong" argument that atheists do. The Christian believes that God determines in an absolute sense what is "right" and "wrong." So what if God tells you to kill an innocent child? Don't you have the same problem, then, as the atheist? Yes you know it is wrong, but if God tells you to do it, then where does the "absolute" moral standard come from? This doesn't usually get brought up on "Unbelievable?" but I imagine that if it was the Christian might object that God wouldn't give such a command and so the question is moot. And then there is the Abraham story. But, the Christian might object, God lets Abraham off the hook in the end and so he never really demands that Abraham actually kill his innocent child. But what about the accounts of God demanding genocide? or even committing mass murder during the flood (presumably there were pregnant women around at the time of the flood too - God committing abortions too??).

The fundamentalist God is not a solution to this problem. If God is a "super-being" who can take action, change his mind, act in an angry or jealous way, this doesn't produce an "absolute" morality any more than the relativist atheist viewpoint does. In fact if you take literally a God who can order babies killed (see 1 Samuel 15:3 for instance) not only do you have to surrender (it seems to me) an absolute morality, you have to live with a relative value system handed down by a tyrant.

Tillich and the Courage to Be: A Short Post on the Meaning of Despair

I've been posting my thoughts on Paul Tillich's The Courage to Be, now and then, and today I continue with a brief note on the section "The Meaning of Despair."

Tillich had already discussed his "three anxieties" of humankind: the anxieties of Fate and Death, of Emptiness and Meaninglessness, and of Guilt and Condemnation. These anxieties, Tillich asserts, are implied as a condition of human existence itself. They are therefore inescapable and, in varying proportions for different people at different times, they "are fulfilled in the situation of despair...." (Courage, p. 54.) Despair is the state in which the person is without hope. "Nonbeing is felt as absolutely victorious." (Courage, p. 54-5.) But, as often seems to be the case, the feeling of nonbeing as victorious is a contradiction, in a sense, because you have to be to feel at all. The pain of despair arises out of the knowledge of nonbeing's ultimate victory over being and the power, therefore, of nonbeing to prevent being from affirming itself. If we were only dealing with the anxiety of Fate and Death then voluntary death could be a way out of the dilemma. (Courage, p. 55.)

But, though suicide may get one out of the problem of fear of death, it does nothing to alleviate the anxiety of Guilt and Condemnation. Here Tillich injects a bit of empirical wisdom into the mix by stating that the fact that suicide cannot liberate a person from the anxiety of Guilt and Condemnation is "highly paradoxical" but is "verified by those who have experienced fully the despair of condemnation." (Courage, p. 55.) I don't take Tillich to imply here that one must experience this despair to know this, but rather than the collective experience of humankind tells us this. The point seems to me to be that it would seem like suicide should allow escape from all anxieties - it puts an end to being and all that which is a result or implied by being - including the anxieties themselves. And yet, it is the collective wisdom of humankind that it does not. Tillich explains that this implies that Guilt and Condemnation are in some sense greater than the finite act of ending one's being. They are, in some sense, therefore "infinite." He says "[Guilt and Condemnation] have an infinite weight and cannot be removed by a finite act of ontic self-negation." (Courage, p. 56.)

This, Tillich says, makes despair truly inescapable. One is aware of the futility of suicide. Finally, Tillich notes that despair is not reached by everyone. It is an extreme situation which is rare. But it is a rare situation against which the rest of our lives must be understood. "We are not always aware of our having to die," he says, "but in the light of the experience of having to die our whole life is experienced differently." (Courage, p. 56.) This seems right to me and though I may not have ever reached the state of true despair that he speaks of, I do know that the experience of having a close loved one die does change a person. My brother passed away when I was 20 years old (he was 31) and I remember the powerful sense that gave me of the reality of death. I had seen pets and grandparents die, but, though it was sad, that seemed different. Expected in a sense and it did not shake the foundations of my own sense of mortality. But a sibling dieing? When a sibling has died you know it could have been you and it will be you - you are no longer allowed the illusion that life is forever. That realization doesn't have to lead to despair, but no doubt your life is experienced differently from that day on.

Acting Out Loud

Most Unitarian Universalist churches take very seriously the importance of being welcoming to people of all sexual orientations. The Religious Institute has started up a website guide called Acting Out Loud which describes itself as a

a new resource for faith communities that want to move beyond welcome toward a wider embrace of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their families.

ACTING OUT LOUD provides clergy and other religious leaders with background on LGBT people, points you to the best-available online resources, and offers ideas and approaches recommended by leading clergy, theologians and advocates across the country.

It concentrates on links to resources across Christian, Jewish, and Unitarian Universalist traditions and looks to be very handy.

Dan Fante and Forrest Church

These two were the subjects of interviews by Terry Gross on Fresh Air on Tuesday, September 29th. Forrest Church died on September 24, 2009, at the age of 61. He was a famous Unitarian Universalist minister, presiding at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in New York City for about 30 years. Terry Gross had interviewed him last year about his cancer which, at that time seemed to be in remission, but came back this year. A transcript of the interview is here.

She also interviewed Dan Fante, the writer. I don't know much about Mr. Fante, had never encountered his writing before, but she had him read a short piece he had written called "Asking." He read:

For years, I thought that talking to the gods was an exercise done privately, under unforgiving, distant stars, ridiculous unrequited prayer evoked by staring at old, cold books with mean, small print. Then I discovered that just ain't it at all. God can be found in the thank-you voice of a guy at the counter in the supermarket or the quietness of a stranger's parking-lot smile or the rattle of weeds across a dry, summer Mohave or watching my unfettered fingers jump, jump, jumping across the computer keys, deep in the middle of typing three hours' worth of unscrubbed truth. God for me turned out to be a conscious choice, a self-evoked experience, just like love.

The part about God turning out to be a "conscious choice, a self-evoked experience, just like love" really struck me and reminded me of Gordon Kaufman's similar idea. A transcript of the whole interview is here.

A Talk in Houston Tomorrow Night

The Houston Natural History Museum and the Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church are co-sponsoring a talk by the National Center for Science Education's executive director Eugenie C. Scott called "The Evolution of Creationism." Looks to be very good and she will be signing a couple of her books Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction (second edition) and Not in Our
Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design is Wrong for Our Schools. If you are in the area and have the time and opportunity do check it out. It will be at the Natural History Museum and you can get additional details about this talk and others in the Darwin 2009 Houston series here.

Unbelievable "Creation"

I'm a regular listener to the podcasts of "Unbelievable?" which is a show on Premier Christian Radio based in the U.K. It generally consists of a "Christian and a non-Christian" discussing some social or theological issue and I find it usually entertaining, sometimes infuriating, and often thought provoking. It's point of view is, obviously, Christian, but not just Christian but CHRISTIAN if you know what I mean. I don't know if I would go quite as far as to say that its point of Christian view is a strictly fundamentalist Christianity, but it is at least a conservative form of orthodox Christianity. Paul Tillich, Gordon Kaufman and Marcus Borg would probably not make the cut to be the "Christian" in the show. The host of the show, Justin Brierley, seems like a fairly conservative Christian, but he is also always very polite to his non-Christian guests and seems genuinely interested in getting to hear their point of view.

Anyway, this week they featured a show about the movie "Creation" (you can listen to it or download it from the Unbelievable? website). The movie sounds interesting - it is about Charles Darwin's life and his writing of The Origin of Species. It apparently talks about the the relationship between he and his Christian wife and how his theories affected it, as well as the rest of the world. Sadly enough it seemed like it was having trouble getting a distributor in the U.S. for a while, but now apparently has found one.

The episode of Unbelievable? was a bit different than the norm in that it was not so much a discussion between a Christian and a non-Christian but an interview with the author of the book the movie was based on and a discussion between Christian leaders about the movie after a preview showing. The author is Randall Keynes, a great-great grandson of Darwin, and the interview is good. I won't spoil it too much, but Mr. Keynes found some papers from his ancestor's family that shed some light on Darwin's life and wrote the book Annie's Box upon which the movie is based. Sounds like a book worth checking out.

The panel discussion was something else. It consisted of a Nicolas Beale (a "theological evolutionist" who believes evolution and Christianity are not incompatible), Steve Lloyd, of Biblical Creation Ministry - a young earth Creationist group, and an author named Charles Foster. I was a bit taken aback by Mr. Lloyd who really was a young earth creationist. He wasn't allowed to try to present his "scientific" argument for young earth creationism (Mr. Brierley noted that would be a whole different show) but he did present his theological reasons for believing in a young earth and creation - mainly that Adam's sin brought death into the world, necessitating the death and resurrection of Jesus to atone for it and conquer death, and if death and suffering had been around for billions of years previously his view of Christian theology wouldn't make sense. Mr. Foster didn't make much sense to me. I am not really sure what he thinks about evolution and theology - he just seemed to sort of ramble on for a while and I'm not sure even Mr. Brierley could figure him out.

Mr. Beale was the biggest surprise to me. He is pro-evolution, in the sense that he believes that it happened, but he really seemed to struggle to answer questions put to him about what the Genesis story means to him and his theology. He seemed to want to turn the story about the death caused by original sin to be some sort of spiritual death but never seemed to articulate what that really meant and how one would squeeze that out of the story as presented in the Bible. Maybe there just wasn't enough time for him to develop what he wanted to say, but there was all this talk about how time was not the same for God as it is for us, that it was referring to spiritual death and not physical death and so on and not much discussion of the obvious point that it is a myth and should not be taken so literally. Yes, he did say that the Bible was not a science textbook and should not be attempted to be used as such, but there was still a sense in which he seemed to need to have the story explain something about the outside world (this "spiritual death" or whatever) rather than just being able to say that the story as mythology can be valuable as a poetic work of fiction which can be used to enrich our internal lives in much the same way other great myths and literature can.