trading faith for faith: a critique of reasons for unbelief

A battle has raged for years between Evangelical Christians and those who claim skepticism/agnosticism/atheism on the grounds of critical thinking. The accusations are of garden variety: Christians allegedly aren’t able to think for themselves or keep an open mind. The charges are usually levelled by those who used to be believers, charges lobbed with all the zeal of a fresh convert.

One website I have become familiar with is manned by a former Christian trying to figure out “what it means to be an unbeliever and a skeptic.” I don’t mind that people choose to abandon their faith, that is, it does not offend me. Perhaps it should, but that’s not the point. That said, it does profoundly bother me when they proclaim their new gospel with little intellectual integrity or currency. To be clever or witty is not to be mistaken with being thoughtful or reasonable. It makes for good punditry, but awful, imbalanced rhetoric. (I’m looking at you, Mencken.) In other words, politicians ought not be mistaken for intellectuals; whether one wants to admit it or not, the battle for a dominant particular cultural theistic paradigm is more political posturing than anything else.

Plainly, there is no such thing as open-mindedness. To be open-minded does not say as much about a person as it does contrast from someone else. If someone claims to be open-minded, she says nothing about herself as much as she does those who she assumes are supposedly closed-minded. Ironically, the claim of open-mindedness actually is closed-minded, but under the pretense of relativism, she can claim nothing about herself as much as she can fling an under-the-radar ad hominem at someone else. It’s no different than a politician claiming to be ‘progressive’. What is that, anyway? What constitutes your progress? Without an assumption of something that is either status quo or regressive, the progressive has no leg on which to stand.

The issue here is assumption, particularly epistemic assumption. No one lacks epistemic assumptions, every person has a set of parameters by which he or she understands the world. So, the recently-converted unbeliever claims on the grounds of thinking for himself, presuming that believers do not think for themselves. Or that they have developed critical thinking capacities that preclude religious belief, presuming that religious believers are intellectual neanderthals.

In the interest of full disclosure, it comes as no surprise to many of you that I hold a particular disdain for the subcultural foolishness and accidental hubris of pop Christianity, I lament the general lack of theological development in our churches from clergy and laity alike, stupidity drives me batty and I generally have a low view of humanity. If that were all there was to it, I’d be a pretty miserable person. That said, I am moved by nobility and goodness, extraordinary acts of valor and beauty, celebrate in communities that have found a way to eschew mediocrity spiritual and social and am unafraid to act in sacrificial compassion for those around me. I refuse to be defined by the things that would keep me merely a cynic and nothing more.

It seems that our defiant agnostic friends would, in a great and terrible kicking against the goads, rather that they were simply not those people. Critical thinking, then, is a cop out, if for no other reason than the truth: critical thinking itself cannot and does not automatically render religious faith to be false. Critical thinking is not designed to deny the existence of things, but to affirm, leaving the a-theist, a-gnostic, un-believer in a most undesirable position: if the point of the aforementioned is to carve out a position that refutes supernatural or religious activity, why all the bluster? As has been said elsewhere, if there is nothing, from a purely materialist perspective, why (again, causally, not metaphysically) is there anything at all?

In sum, perhaps the time has come to doubt doubt, a point Michael Polanyi makes in his tacit epistemology. This falsification-run-amok has caused much harm to the intellectual cause. It’s easy to negate, it’s more difficult to affirm. Negation comes in the critique of something already presented, while the task of epistemic affirmation requires the enterprising and courageous mind to construct a case for something. The epistemic affirmation process requires, at its core a + b = c. The negation is a parasite to the affirming host. Rather than building a case for a-theism, the process ought to be a case for something else, for example, nihilism.

The absurdity of arguing against something that, in the mind of the skeptic, doesn’t exist reaches epic proportions. In a post next week on sailerb, I shall demonstrate why the Pfeffergorgles should have nothing to do with northwestern Iowa.

This is not to say that there is no place for critical thinking: clearly, there have been varying levels of crappy arguments for different things, from Xeno’s paradox to the earth-centered universe to the existence of God. The philosophical task involves the critique of substandard arguments, and standard arguments ought to withstand criticism. There is a level of quality control involved here, let there be no doubt. In fact, this work is an exercise in critique. I digress.

If critical thinking isn’t enough, there’s always science. Indeed, our friend also claims that reading science books (“with an open mind”, he proudly proclaims) helped to “[remove] layer after layer of propaganda”. Now, what exactly about science delivered him to salvation? Old-earth and (presumably Darwinian) evolution. This is a circumstantial ad hominem: the inference here is that young-earth creationism and intelligent design are non-negotiable aspects of Christian faith. This is patently false, moreover, they have nothing to do with Christian soteriology. Like much of what one will see coming from people like our unbeliever, it is a red herring.

I would agree that there is far too much happy, thoughtless chugging of the kool-aid in Evangelical church circles; our response to Darwin has been tepid at best. That said, there are two major points that have been deliberately left out of the general conversation. First, the line of thinking that faith and science are at odds with one another is a philosophical fiction, and actually couldn’t be further from the truth. Religion is often the strawman by which those who hold to naturalism (atheism repackaged) create their aire of dominance. Second, the acceptance of evolution does not, by any means, delegitimize Christianity. The head gasket of a car engine does not blow because someone purchases a car.  When it is also considered that a hyper-literal interpretation of Genesis is fundamentally improper, then the idea that evolution ruins faith is almost laughable. I am willing to concede, again, the fact that our churches have by and large abandoned the scientific conversation, but in the same way, science has generally abandoned faith. It’s a two-way street, paved not by science, but by philosophy.

Science is an extension of empiricism. For centuries, it was natural philosophy, a way of understanding the world around us. Today, it lurches toward scientism, the idea that science is the only way to properly interpret reality. There is one glaring problem, though: science, the process of understanding the empirical world, is reliant on epistemic assumptions, if for no other reason than everything can be reduced to one fundamentally unjustifiable premise. Science not only has its limits, it is, by definition, limited. Science cannot affirm or deny the existence of anything beyond the observable world, which makes Dawkins’ task, amongst others, utterly vain.

What can science do? It can provide powerful explanatory ability, help us understand and harness the capabilities of the world and its resources, provide us a means by which we can use technology as a tool to help (or sometimes, harm) humanity. It is reliant upon the observer or participant. It is not designed to provide us with a why, particularly, a why that is there is no why. And, in the process of understanding the world, it, like critical thinking, is designed to affirm truth and refute error. It also has been the means by which scientists for centuries until late have found a place of worship.

Science is always philosophical, but philosophy is seldom, if ever, scientific. That which is more limited has less explanatory power.

Even in these two instances, it is clear that the idea of science and critical thought somehow negates Christian faith is little more than a red herring, a diversion from the affirming task naturalism consistently fails to undertake. Through circumstantial ad hominem and a lot of clever sound and fury, there is little beyond the presentation that would constitute serious reflection on a very serious matter of personal worldview.

I grant that some of these matters cause serious questions for the theist, and we ought to consider them: if evolution has taken place, what do we do with Christian salvation? Is evolution a legitimate way to understand the creation of the world? If so, why is it that so many other fields of science have moved past the 19th century, while the origins of the universe have apparently been settled for nearly 200 years? Or could it be that Darwin’s work was a product of the times, a work fueled with the spirit of the Enlightenment? Could it be that Darwin, who clearly was inspired by/borrowed from Hegel, Lyell and LaPlace, simply applied a philosophical paradigm to the observable world? Even Newton got trumped. Why not Darwin?

This is what we have by the very pen (or, in this instance, fingers) of our friend: “I was an evangelical Christian for over a decade, completely convinced that God was real and Jesus was alive today. I attended Bible college to train to be a pastor. I worked at a Christian church for many years. I have ‘led people to Christ.’ I have left tracts in bathrooms. I have knocked on hundreds of doors asking people to repent and believe in Jesus. . . . I no longer believe in a personal God or that Jesus was born of a virgin, worked miracles, and rose from the dead. I don’t believe in heaven or hell, angels or demons, holy books or prophecy. I don’t believe the earth was created 6,000 years ago, or that God intelligently designed every species.”

What does he believe? As a self-professed “unbeliever” and “skeptic”, he believes that Christian faith is false, and that there is no way to know anything with certainty.

Problem one: faith cannot be false, a faith claim is a belief claim. Truth and falsehood are terms reserved for facts, not beliefs. Problem two: he is certain that nothing can be certain. However, he is certain that critical thinking works and that Darwinian evolution is factual. He is also certain with regard to probability. (Never mind that Pascal was certain about probability, and yet held firmly to his Christian beliefs.) A skeptic, by definition, doubts the possibility of real knowledge. Why science? Why logic? In spinning himself out of one alleged delusion, he has strangled himself with another.

So, what we have is a person who simply no longer wants to be a Christian, and believes he is warranted in doing so. And that would be fine: he is welcome to find his own way. I have no relationship to him and have no way to provide insight or investment into his life. That said, his reasoning for abandoning faith is little more than one watery excuse after another. He is not interested in declaring what actually happened to change his mind, or in building a case for a better worldview. He is only interested in differentiating himself from his subjective cultural experiences in a setting that affirmed young-earth, literal six-day creation and demanded that he and his friends go door-to-door with tracts and win the lost for Jesus. And in his attempts to say “I’m not one of them anymore,” all he has are generalities: Christians don’t think for themselves, believe in science or probability, ask tough questions, can’t imagine the Bible as anything but literally written by God, and are closed-minded anti-intellectual bigots who believe that God literally created the universe in six days about six to ten-thousand years ago. He may as well be campaigning against bleeding heart liberals or tax cuts for the rich.

In all honesty, I pity him; that his experience in Christian faith was so intellectually vapid that he felt the need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But I have no pity for his reasons, as they are insulting to anyone who is interested in thoughtful discourse. He is entitled to his reasons for walking away, but he ought not presume to insult the intelligence of his audience, many of whom simply accept his conclusions as true. Preach it, brother!

In reality, his new-found faith is no more reasonable than the faith he left. His new faith is, also, quite unreasonable. He just doesn’t realize it yet.

http:// unreasonablefaith [dot] com [slash] about

Part of growing up is screwing up. Many times, people are defined and refined by their foibles and pratfalls. Sometimes those mistakes are chalked up as learning experiences, sometimes there is no grading curve and people are marked forever by their mistakes. A basic lesson in moral philosophy is that without the bad, there is no way to determine what is good; Eastern philosophy talks about this in terms of yin and yang, equilibrium.

Could it be that the converse is also true: without good, we would not understand what is bad, evil, wrong?

I would like to take this in two directions: first, in an ethical consideration of the need of an arbiter of good; and second, a consideration of the nature of the God-man, that is, Christ.

Democracy does not lend itself well to ethical principle. The concept of critical mass bears this out: if a good or service (and, for the sake of this conversation, societal actions) attains a level of popularity, that product or action ceases being new or innovative and entrenches itself into the cultural status quo. Things start out innovative or cutting edge and, for its survival, strive toward mediocrity. Ten years ago, the concept of Facebook or MySpace was virtually unheard of: today, Facebook or MySpace has exploded from its entrenchment in young adults into the middle-aged crowd. Those of us who are online check our accounts multiple times a day; going without it long enough creates abnormalcy, leaves unfulfillment. 20 years ago, cell phones were a luxury afforded by the elite and upper-middle class, now cells are not only ubitquitous, but people are texting (or checking Facebook.)

Societal trends and behaviors are no different: something can explode onto the scene and be labeled innovative, dangerous, revolutionary or whatever, and after time be de rigueur. Thomas Kuhn (and Michael Polanyi before him) talked about this kind of thing in terms of paradigm shifts, perhaps what I’m talking about here is paradigm integration. The construct does not necessarily collapse–though it can–but is at least added on to or renovated. Or, more caustically, the frog dies from the slow boil of cultural hegemony.

The rise of the naturalistic, atomistic West and the devolution of ethics and philosophy from sources of wisdom to deconstruction of language and situational ethics are not unrelated.

Ethics may not necessarily require God, but it is certainly hard to derive ethics from something like Darwinian naturalism or semiotics. That, and while people may disagree about original sin or total depravity, we can all agree that people are generally prone to stupidity. Dan Quayle can get ripped for his unorthodox spelling of ‘tomato’, while companies spend gift money on lavish junkets and bonuses. There’s stupid and then there’s stupid, but they’re both stupid.

If things, moments, behaviors are or they aren’t, then those things by default are either good or not good. Hegemony and critical mass–both democratic patterns of behavior–act in a way that blurs and then paints over the line. The reality of the matter, though, is that the very inception of any noun is, by default, the moment it is open to scrutiny. And what is open to scrutiny is subject to unintended consequences.

The struggle I’m working through is the nature of Christ: how is a man who knows no sin defined? What can refine that? If Jesus was, during his time here, fully man–and I believe he was–does it really matter that he was sinless pre-crucifixion? What defined Jesus in that context was that he was falsely accused and wrongfully executed, but he was sinless, hence the resurrection. Sin and death are inextricably linked; the resurrection is, in no small part, a paradigm implosion.

How could a person like that relate with anyone? Goody-goodies are precisely that for a reason. We can’t stand them. Maybe that’s why he needed to be put down. And perhaps that is why he could live with such profound compassion, and so much prophetic authority against the religious. Jesus, the incarnation of the God who is, is the envoy of a God who has no definition other than being. Being and rightness (or, righteousness) then have to be linked somehow. Bonhoeffer says as much in his ethical musings, and I think he’s right. Creation ought to reflect creator, any disunion is separation; Jesus then is the creation-creator: his life means more because of the attempt of fallen man to define him than anything before. Sinlessness doesn’t mean anything until then, Jesus is a good guy until faced with death, at which point he becomes the Christ.

The question that extends from this understanding, though, is somewhat disconcerting: what is it that Jesus taught while he was with us? Clearly, doing good doesn’t cut it. Repentance from sin is an aspect, but no one could claim Jesus as their salvation pre-resurrection. Our soteriology is utterly reliant on the death and resurrection of Christ; the Christ-event is a unifying portal between creation and creator. But the kingdom of God Jesus preached was not his atoning sacrifice; that would be senseless.

I do not intend to minimize the Christ-event, but want to understand what Christ’s work was prior to the Christ-event, especially as we approach passion week. The crucifixion and resurrection change everything, this much is obvious, but it is only obvious contextually, that is, to us in the [post-]Christian West. Could it be that the Christian ethic, that is, union with God and walking in repentance, is all there is to it? Are we to model Christ and his teachings, or live in the resurrection? Am I the only one who sees these as not necessarily entangled?

This obviosuly lends itself to the “what about those who have never heard?” conversation, but I don’t find that germane to this conversation. Your feedback is welcomed.

In praise of spirit over letter

With all the hubbub surrounding politics regarding deregulation and oversight, it seems a good time to mention a few related things.

One of the things that makes Christian theology beautiful is its spiritual revolution over the letter of the law. It is this philosophical shift that inspired American limited, restricted government, enshrined as a constitutional democratic republic. (For the record, I choose my words carefully: I do not advocate that this is a Christian nation founded by Christians, however, we do see a clear influence of, amongst other motivations, the scriptures in the formation of America.) As we see a concept of Christian liberty as taught in the New Testament (a proper reading of the New Testament proclaims what we should or can do, rather than what we cannot), we see in the Constitution clearly defined limitations on government, not citizens. Sadly, that concept has been routinely ignored, particularly in recent years by all parties and branches in government.

With the controversial bailout package passed by Congress came much discussion about the sources of our recent economic meltdown. Typically, Democrats blamed deregulation while Republicans blamed lack of oversight.

Constitutionally-limited government is predicated upon the decency or goodness of a nation’s citizenry. Tocqueville said it thus: When America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great; noting that the concept of American liberty was so intertwined with fervent preaching of the Gospel that it was clear the source of goodness was in the churches and places of worship from city to countryside.

Decent people need not be placed under the thumb of excessive stipulations or legalities. Decent people accept people who will preside over and defend constitutionally-limited government, which is why we have presidents and not kings, premiers, chancellors or tyrants, as well as a Congress that has specifically enumerated powers. When decent people preside over the halls of government, there is no concern for trespassing on those powers because their role is clear, defined and accepted: service, not dominion.

Again, an axiom found in scripture that has lasting repercussions beyond spiritual affairs: Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint.

People who need strict boundaries and black and white rules are people with no sense of responsibility or self-control. Because they lack a basic inner sense of right and wrong, and have never been exposed to the concept of natural law, they are hardly more than animals: selfish creatures constantly starved by the insatiable hunger for self-gratification. People who are dangers to themselves because of their reckless self-interest are people who need straitjackets and restraints.

Self-interest, and a good dose of deception, caused the fall. Self-interest is the antithesis of liberty.

Federal codex and regulations now exceed 25,000 pages of legal mumbo-jumbo, while the Constitution has been replaced with the US Legal Code, full of enough thou shalt nots to make even the most embittered wayward soul, having a propensity toward complaining about faith-based legalism, cringe. Clearly, we are a people who are a danger to ourselves governed by people whose self-interest is political ideology instead of the vigorous defense of the Constitution and their fellow Americans.

Clearly, we are a people who necessitate tyranny. As Tarkin aptly put it: Fear will keep them in line.

Which brings us to the current economic meltdown. Things were allowed to get this bad by everyone:

-Government which held mortgage lenders hostage in the name of politically-correct egalitarianism and then got into the debt management business with high risk mortgages via government-sponsored entities. The same party that advocated the destruction of black neighborhoods in the name of public housing projects passed the original Community Reinvestment Act and its modification, which is directly to blame for the mess we’re in right now;

-Banks and other financial entities that offered variable and adjustable rate mortgages with impunity and disregard for their own well being (see also: Countryside, amongst others), as well as buying up bad debt portfolios from others (see also, Brothers, Lehman, amongst others);

-Those who borrowed without consulting an attorney or doing due diligence before signing the paperwork for their own inevitable execution;

-Government again, for failing to do anything until there was no choice but to engage in socialism the likes of which may completely destroy free enterprise in America;

-And finally, taxpayers for not throwing a second Boston Tea Party over such a blatantly risky, taxpayer-funded, Yuan-funded potential fiscal apocalypse.

The reality of the matter is that this mess is neither the Democrats’ nor Republicans’ responsibility. It is not because of regulation, deregulation or oversight. It is because we are a nation of irresponsible, nihilistic sub-humans, by irresponsible, nihilistic sub-humans and for irresponsible. nihilistic sub-humans. ‘People’ hardly suffices to adequately explain who we have become in ‘civilized’ society.

Corporate lawyers pour over legislation in order to find loopholes, so they can do what is wrong without breaking the law. McCain and Feingold were able to get campaign finance reform from dream to reality, only to see the 527 nightmare, while a certain presidential campaign is living high off the hog thanks in part to donations amounting to just underneath the disclosure threshold. In a culture poisoned by power and greed (in no particular order), what do you expect? 501 tax exemption, a perfectly-decent allowance for charitable organizations, has allowed a whole bumper crop of crisis cult health-and-wealth ‘churches’ that live apart from the burden of taxation, only to line the pockets of sleazy snake oil salesmen preaching their offensive and heretical doctrines, while well-intentioned organizations trying to attain 501 status to do meaningful religious or charitable work need to go through miles of red tape to the status so many others appear to abuse.

[EDITORIAL ASIDE: Given the cultural climate we have now, further given that we will be facing up to a trillion-dollar deficit in the upcoming months, rest assured that balancing the budget will include finding fresh manflesh for the Uru-khai. Churches and synagogues, the cross hairs are upon you, your property and your income, I mean, donations, irrespective of who heads the next administration. The sun is setting on you because of those who abuse the privilege of exemption. Indeed, night cometh, when no man can work.]

I advocate neither morality nor Christianity as the solution, mainly because mob rule is already entrenched within our borders. The only stability that will come will be by force and not from the goodwill within us as people. It has already begun, and while I do not hold any particular eschatological stance, mostly because there is so much work yet to be done that it is utterly presumptuous and absurd to look to the stars, we can see the foundations of [potentially friendly, potentially not] totalitarianism laid in our civic and federal halls.

When America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

The principles of American liberty are beautiful, yet nothing compared to the liberty of following the way of Christ. Reason, charity, faith and self-government are ideals nearly lost in the throes of those blindly following Hegel’s dialectic (on both sides). As a philosopher, a Christian, a theologian, husband, brother, son and human, existence without these core tenets is existence bound first by chains of the soul, then by chains of the body.

We spent decades fighting for the full liberty of our human brothers because of the color of their skin. We spend millions of dollars fighting for the liberty of oppressed people in the Middle East. Why are we not vigorously defending the liberty of America? How can we assail tyrannous ideology overseas and ignore the rising tyrant(s) within our own borders? Or overturn the death-inducing letter of the law there, but to return to the death-inducing letter here?

Where is the spirit of the law in American society today?