Pithy quotes from our current reading which give us pause to reflect


Joy and Strength for the Pilgrim's Day : Mary Wilder Tileston : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

I’m wondering if prayer is not more the attitude than it is the words.

Thanks for sharing these quotes. I don’t know that I can say anything very intellegent in response, but I’ll try to engage at least a little (between making and eating banana splits to sweeten the return to school after break, and playing with the cat, who seems desperate for some fun).
Outside of the context of the book (since I haven’t read any more of it than these quotes), Taylor’s comments about various understandings of God is telling and challenging. Christians and Jews believe humanity has been given special revelation from God about God, which we could gain on our own. We are commanded in those texts to “Know the Lord,” and we are given a great deal of information about him. For those who accept this revelation, it is our duty to conform our understanding to what we learn from this revelation. We don’t get to get to pick what we like best. And there are parts we wish were otherwise. If we are serious about belief, faith, in this God, we are forced to change; we believe we are changed not only by our human efforts, but by the work of God upon us. So there ought to be a good deal of humility about what we are doing, whom we worship, our understanding of that one, and our minuteness in comparison to this God. Although there often is not.

Regarding your comments on Hinduism, I think they make sense. If one is looking from the outside of all faiths, the one that offers the most options probably would seem most appealing; there is nearly always something that seems to “fit.”

I’m curious what Taylor means about “God in the self” precisely. Honestly, reading this from a Christian rubs me the wrong way, far more than hearing it from a non-Christian. God’s utter otherness and separateness from everything else is a foundational Christian understanding, at least in orthodoxy. It’s the kind of thing I was pointing to in the first part of this reply. Christians don’t get to define our God for ourselves, much less define ourselves as God or in relation to God. And we believe that God, someone other than ourselves, acts upon us in various ways. Maybe I’ve misunderstood her.

I appreciate your insights about dissonance and also evolution. I’m not sure I see the possibility of cohesive communities with diverse dispositions. Humans demonstrate constantly our inability to behave rationally for the sake of our species’ survival. Sigh. Additionally, as Mervin points out later, there are all sorts of conflicting interests in religions, which lead to far more than theological disagreements. (I think Stephen Carter covers this a bit in “The Culture of Disbelief”, which I read maybe 25 years ago).

I need to take a look at Taylor’s book sometime. In a very different vein, I found Richard Twiss’s book “One Church, Many Tribes” perhaps similarly enlightening, but within a Christian context. He was a Native America Christian, who was trying to figure out what that even meant in the context of late 20th century America.

I hope SOMETHING here made some kind of sense. You regularly put so much work into your replies that come out of serious reading and thought. From me, you are often stuck with poorly edited, fractured bits that are cobbled together throughout the day.

1 Like

I find this quote from Irving utterly condemning. Christian practice does not come easy to me. It is often a burden, a weariness. I am burdened and weary. My spirit often doesn’t rejoice in it. Yet God takes what terrible bits and pieces I offer so poorly and does His work with them and on me. I can live with such sanctification in light of eternal hope.

3 Likes

Yes, it is a sure hope, not a just a maybe. (I sent you a PM.)

1 Like

What I see as positive about that is that, as a community, you have a common book of source stories whose meaning you can debate. What I find disappointing is that so many think these distill into a pile of settled facts which almost make their narrative origins irrelevant. If one must pledge their allegiance to this dead pile of facts rather than to the truth those stories speak to themselves directly I think something important is lost.

If all I had to go on was some information about a person, I’m not sure I could claim to know them. There is a lot missing if we never stand before them and make eye contact. So long as have no direct experience all we can do is construct an understanding which we can debate.

But are we permitted to note on which points we are convinced and which seem doubtful? If I am required to accept whole cloth someone else’s understanding, how can it ever become my own?

It seems to me there are reasons to believe there is something more going on in our lives which may be attributed to a deity but I don’t believe any pile of facts constitutes such a reason. I come to this as someone curious about why God belief has been so central to so many human beings and probably for as long as we’ve been recognizably human. My hunch is that it has had a key role in our having become as we are. But I don’t believe there is any external agency with a preconceived plan guiding and shaping it all. There may be but that seems unlikely to me.

Agreed. I see no path to certainty and based on the demeanor of those who claim to have it I would be leery of pursuing certainty as a goal - in this area. We are too close to it be objective. Why not admit the necessity of proceeding subjectively? After all we are subjects. That needn’t mean anything goes. Not every poem, song, novel or piece of art is of equal value. I think we have an innate capacity to recognize what is better even in subjective realms. However I don’t think we improve that capacity by trying to objectify the process.

So am I and neither am sure of what Hindus mean by that. I wouldn’t use the phrase “God in the self” but reflecting on how we are in our self has convinced me that there is more within which makes the way we are possible. I wouldn’t call it “God” but there does seem to be something more onboard each one of us which makes it possible for us to recognize subjective quality when we perceive it. But It isn’t something we can boil down into words to a procedure. It simply is what it is, like God except without the baggage.

No one does and yet we need some way to make sense of the central role it plays in our lives. Do you find the authority of the church sufficient for that? I find I need more direct involvement than that.

And now I feel exactly the same way. We’re not on objective ground. The subject matter doesn’t permit it. So clarity is pretty hard to come by and agreement even more so. But yes made lots sense.

3 Likes

If someone were given a snapshot – literal knowable attributes of someone else, that is real knowledge. That of course does not constitute knowing them personally. We have that about God, but he is also personally knowable and lovable through his direct interactions in his children’s lives, but childlike trust and ingenuousness is required.

There is direct experience available, constituting “I” contact, though. For some, putting their faith in him starts with believing the truth revealed in the Bible and the testimony – the honest factual reports, present day or past – of others, some of whom they may even know personally, like parents, friends or relatives. This in turn leads to the experience of his recognizable presence in their hearts and minds, changing their heart’s desires, goals and worldview. Others have more radical and externally observable objective experiences. I certainly don’t want to impugn the reality of inward experiences, such as Sy Garte’s. C.S. Lewis’ conversion experience comes to mind, too. (I wish I had a collection of the accounts of both kinds. I needn’t mention Maggie for you, of course, but I will for the sake of the unimaginably few who see this who aren’t aware of her account. :wink:) We could discuss whether or not the adjective empirical applies to the external evidence, though, couldn’t we, T. @T_aquaticus :wink: Sometimes in a Christian’s experience they are given objective evidence they don’t want, not to convince them of God’s reality, but to “direct their steps”,* like Rich Stearns. (The sequence of God’s providential interventions in my med school experience included some like that. Maybe I should include my nephrectomy, too.)

Since we have knowledge of his beauty in creation demonstrating his artistry and imagination, and knowledge of his cool providential interventions in the lives of his children demonstrating his sovereignty and power over time and place, who would not want to know him personally?! (Not to mention that is unwise in the extreme.)
 


*Multiple references apply.

We are and it does.

Mostly agreed there - and rather well-stated, though the targets of that criticism would very much see the narrative as relevant; they just see the “pile of settled facts” as being a necessary prerequisite necessary to “bestow credance upon” any forthcoming narrative. They are wrong to do this in such universal terms, to be sure; but they do it nonetheless. There are points where historicity is necessary to validate the message, but to make that modern reactionism the gatekeeper of all biblical scholarship - all understanding of narrative - that has lead to much fundamentalist mischief and mishandling of the sacred word.

2 Likes

Just the other day I read, surely from Holy Envy but I’m not sure, words to this effect:

Treat other people’s religion with the same respect you’d have them treat yours.

Many - though certainly not all- Christians fail at this application of the golden rule. That may well be true of much of the rest of the population as well, both the religious and nons. But not every religion worships a jealous God whose adherents take offense at every perceived slight of their deity. From my online experience fundamentalist atheists and Christians fail the most egregiously, with a slight edge to the atheists. Though they don’t have a deity in that fight, many are every bit as defensive of their religious status as Christians are for their God’s feelings, and probably more so.

2 Likes

This could be interesting to consider for other issues too that aren’t religious. For example, what would it mean to treat a flat-earther’s views with the same respect with which I want my “round-earth” view to be treated? Can a view simply be declared wrong, incoherent, illogical, etc. without that being taken as “disrespect”?

4 Likes

Great point–or with Covid. We can disagree with conspiracy theorists respectfully, without agreeing with them.

1 Like

I suppose someone who truly believes the earth is flat shouldn’t be ridiculed. The same goes for vaccine deniers. You would think a flat earthier could be shown evidence to correct his mistaken belief. To convince a vaccine denier it might require more education and that requires some willingness and even effort.

I guess the question becomes why do we want to ridicule anyone? For me it is when someone seems insincere in saying obtuse things that I’m more likely to “go low”.

2 Likes

A person of good will won’t. I suppose that is easy enough for most to agree on.

It can be a brute fact that the loudest and most joyful singer in your church might also be the one who sings off key and can’t hold a tune to save their lives (and may indeed be amazingly oblivious to that fact.) Is there any way to point out this truth to them in a way that doesn’t leave them feeling disrespected?

I suppose part of the answer here is to … be the sort of person who others would share these things with because they know you can take it - and in fact would even want to know! We probably need to each ask ourselves in what ways we are that person with the habit that so irritates others, because we would (or at least should) want to stop it. People of good will are generally horrified to discover that they’re making life difficult for others or that they are even doing anything that makes it more work for others to love them. If a person generally has cultivated an attitude of wanting to know when they’re wrong, they probably aren’t the sort that will keep entertaining flat earth ideas for very long.

3 Likes

Of course some of us have gifts best suited for just such ridicule. When you’ve been given the gift of sarcasm I’ve been blessed with, it is hard to pass up a cue to put it on display.

3 Likes

@MarkD’s church? XD

I think i may just have gotten a clue to what the author Barbara Brown Taylor means by “finding God in self”, @Kendel . It shows up in the fourth of the book’s twelve chapters, which shares the same title as the book. For anyone considering reading it for themselves I’ll blur any further passages I quote. If you decide to risk the spoiler, just click your mouse in the blurred block of text to read it.

This is a busy chapter with many good points but I’ll risk cutting straight to the part which I think speaks to that puzzling phrase regarding where a certain kind of Hindu looks for God. The passage begins by enumerating some of the troubling questions which can arise when you visit places where people practice other faiths, especially if they are people of goodwill and skilled at speaking of their faith with people who don’t share it.

What is the true nature of God, and how do we know what God desires of us? How capable are we of responding to those desires, and what do we hope will happen to us if we do? If the religious world you are visiting is one where neither “God” nor “religion” is a meaningful term, even more unsettling questions may arise. Is there a larger consciousness at work in what happens to us or are we the makers of our own meaning? What moves people to lives of compassion in the absence of belief in God?

The part I bolded suggests that within some faith systems, God’s nature can be understood to lie in a larger consciousness. How large? It doesn’t say but one. But I find a clue on the wiki page on her under “Academic background”.

Alma mater * Emory University

I may be one of the few here with no clear idea what “panentheism” even means but it is listed as being her “school or tradition”. So the “larger consciousness” at work which may shed light on God’s nature could refer to something like cosmos-wide consciousness of which God is the embodiment. But that has never made any sense to me. If consciousness is widely dispersed as it seems to be then I see no reason to imagine it as having one unified will. The way I think of it, consciousness is indeed widely dispersed at least among creatures with neuronal structures (but maybe even among slime molds and rocks). I’d say our human conceptions of God arise from the apprehension of something divine within the field of consciousness associated with our own being. I don’t mean one field of consciousness for all of mankind, though I’m guessing that probably would make more sense to Christians. But what I think is that within the field of consciousness arising in each one of us, the part which represents our beliefs and the deliberate expression of our will is only one part. That individual part is supported by something much larger and wiser, and it is our fleeting glimpses of the insights and actions of that part which have given rise to and still supports God belief. Intuitively we suspect it is important to please this part of consciousness; and anything which has that effect is felt to bring us fulfillment and add meaning to our lives. I have not finished the book so I don’t know how closely this will fit the author’s own idea but I hope she will go on to say more about this.

I find the paragraph that follows this passage (also on page 75) to be very useful as well. It discusses the benefits to those who of risk making contact with other faith systems with their competing truth claims.

1 Like

Nice.

Spurgeon, 6 January

I wouldn’t. I would say connect the evidentiary dots that draw the picture of reality and that point to the knowable loving and lovable personal God who is and maybe some correct God-belief will arise. Some of those dots are quite objectively factual and not just based on surmises.

As I understand it, Pantheism (just to contrast it with Panentheism) is the belief that material reality is God. (Maybe a bit like Einstein - who didn’t believe in any personal God that would listen to your prayers, but believed in the cosmos and the collection of rules governing it as being the “God” of everything.) Most mainline Christians write off pantheism as beyond the pale - as far as orthodox Christian belief would see it.

But Panentheism sees God both in everything (just as the pantheist also does), but also as transcendent (beyond and independently of this material cosmos) as well. So it’s a bigger God. Instead of material reality being God (pantheist), material reality is now a subset of God - a part of God, if you will. That’s the Panentheist.

The latter one seems to be accepted as a more respectable option by some Christians because it can resonate with the scriptural message of an omnipresent God. You can’t go anywhere where God is not. People can be left to quibble (and “quibble” they will) over the terminology of just what it means to say God is present vs. this or that thing being a part of God. Recognizing a “universal Christ” seems to be a trendy thing right now among some - and rejecting that universality just as hotly trendy among the opponents of it.

2 Likes

Thanks for breaking it down. The idea that consciousness might somehow be co-basic with the material world is a pretty new possibility I’ve been considering. I’d have to get a whole lot more comfortable with that idea before I could take seriously the idea that every instantiation of consciousness was simultaneously plugged into one universal consciousness-central. Not saying that couldn’t be the case but it seems pretty far out there to me, and frankly way more than is needed to make sense of our own experience. I would never cite Occam’s razor as in an argument intended to be persuasive for others but this is an instance of when that seems to tip the balance for me at least.

1 Like