"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.