It seems to me there is plenty of reason for belief in God even without the Bible or Jesus. I’d like to share some reasons I’ve come across and hear from others what if anything they’ve considered which might reasonably tempt someone from outside Christianity.
Most of what I’d share comes from the writings of Iain McGilchrist, especially his The Matter With Things which is where he first shares his reflections on the sacred. This first one comes from pp 1862-63 and follows closely a few I’ve recently posted on the Pithy Quotes thread which I won’t bother reposting here.
Take those ‘placeholder’ terms - logos, li, tao, eta and so on. The place they hold is not nearly filled by the mere idea of a ground of Being. They suggest much more … Raimon Panikkar writes that it can be seen as the order behind the manifest work, the harmony among all aspects of manifestation, each of which obeys its own level. …
The point is that we are engaged with it through the whole experience of being alive: through our way of meeting the world not just in the intellect but in the heart and mind. …
The consequence of speaking about God rather than merely about the ground of Being is not only that it keeps in our field of attention the ineffable mystery of existence, as McCabe points out - that to which Heidegger exhorts us to respond with radical astonishment; it also alerts to the inadequacy of a response couched primarily in terms of propositions parried back and forth in the cut and thrust of argument. What the term ‘God’ requires of us is not a set of propositions about what cannot be known but a disposition towards what must be recognized as beyond human comprehension. The primary response, therefore, is not intellectual. It is awe and wonder - not mere curiosity, which motivates us to find out more information … but wonder at the immensity of what we must recognize we can never know. Yet that very wonder is what increasingly we lack.
My bolding toward the end. I feel like the most important reason for not sorting God out into a pile of propositions is that it renders it something familiar but lifeless. The reason for a wisdom tradition is to help people to acquire and nurture a visceral regard for life’s wonder.
I don’t know about the “tempt” part, but I do know that my life is so much better with God. I’m not referring to what the Bible says about God – I’m referring to what God says about God. A relationship with God can be meaningful and joyful, filled with the awe and wonder you refer to, even without the doctrines of Christian religion.
An experience of God is an experience of faith. Faith may or may not coexist with religion. A person can have faith with religion or faith without religion because faith is about relationship with God, not words in a book. Ideally, our sacred texts help us better understand how to be in relationship with God, but the long historical arc of religious abuses proves that this often isn’t so.
I think there’s a danger in overstating the point that God is beyond human comprehension. It’s true from certain perspectives of science – especially quantum physics and cosmology – but from the perspective of opening our hearts to the mysteries of love and forgiveness, God is not beyond our comprehension. You can know without knowing, if that makes any sense.
One can crush the biological brain’s ability to experience awe and wonder simply by trying to fill in every box and tick off every question. Exhausted, overtaxed brain networks don’t know how to look at a babbling brook and just rest with the quiet sounds of Divine Love. So I do agree “that very wonder is what increasingly we lack.”
As a Whateverist, what puts you off Christianity? Is it to do with your experience of the people who profess it? Or is it to do with the basic belief in Christ?
In an answer to your Op
There seems to be a need for a God. Looking at the intricate balance of Nature and the Earth itself tends to point towards some sort of Designer/builder,/architect, call it what you will.
Christianity is based on the idea that God wants perfection, yet nowhere in scripture is this ever expressed. God expects more from His chosen race but does scripture actually state that he expects it from Gentiles? IOW Christianity is a tribal religion that has become global and taken with it a sense of possession and exclusivity that maybe was never intended outside Judaism
I think the Christian view of God has merit inasmuch as it claims a universal salvation, but it falls on its need for exclusivity. Scripture becomes a two edged sword thar we do not always wield with wisdom and sensitivity.
Perhaps there are elements of other faiths that you find more appealing?
To me the notion of God is quite philosophical…if we dont know God from his word? I think its foolishness to make tye claim we can find God through scientific study when those same scientists are also challenging that the bible (Gods word) isnt scientific.
To me this becomes a bit circular.
Lets also not forget, before we had the bible, there is strong biblical evidence God revealed himself directly through miracles (plagues of Egypt, Red Sea parting, sun standing still in the sky, balaam and the talking donkey, incarnation and resurrection of Christ, pigs drowning themselves at the behest of demons, Saul/Paul encounter and conversion etc) Science doesnt seem to me to believe in the notion of miracles…so theres that.
Thank you for your warm and thoughtful reply. I would go so far with this last quoted sentence as to say the real choice is know without knowing only what God would have us know or we can just assume God is as we already assume He is and wonder no more. I think you and I make at least a similar choice on that score. Though you manage to place yourself within a tradition with a community which is great. I don’t think I could manage that at least at this time.
I see Jesus as the lived example, God as the mystery itself and the Holy Ghost as what we receive through intuition. I don’t think of any of them as persons. God at least is prior to existence so questions of existence are just moot. But mostly I’m just not interested in receiving marching orders and I don’t think that is what God wants either. I think that stems from the interests of institutions not of the divine.
That seems to make God’s involvement too distant and impersonal. If he wanted minions to do His bidding it would look very differently I think. There is no separation between God and creation except that made available by free will which is an aspect of His generosity and desire for relationship - but not dictatorial control. Creation is more of the artistic variety than the engineering sort I would think.
I agree that exclusivity is a mistake, but it isn’t God’s mistake. It is ours. Just as God is not defined by our concepts but is always something more and greater than whatever we come up with, so I think the effort to pin it all down is wasted. There is probably something to appreciate in every tradition Christianity included, but none is the ‘corrrect’ understanding. No understanding we could articulate would be flatly correct.
I have my own faith already in something open ended and alive that can still surprise me. I’m content.
It took me years to struggle through all the big questions before I eventually decided it was okay for me to just be a human being who needs to share a sense of community with other people who believe in God. I don’t have to agree with everything they believe, and they don’t have to agree with me, but we can sing together (which is always great for the heart and soul). And we can have coffee together after the service. And I can look around and see other children of God who are on their own unique journeys, so we can at least try to lift each other up. It’s a tough world out there, so we need all the support we can get.
Of course, I did pick a church where the Anglican minister doesn’t pound away at Christianity’s least uplifting doctrines (e.g. Original Sin).
There are other ways to be in community, though, and other ways to share the journey with others. Like a gardening group, where awe and wonder are kind of the core foundation of everything you create together.
P.S. The Anglican church I attend is most definitely not a High Anglican church.
Before we had the Bible the miraculous did not promote the Bible or coronate its characters as literal gods and demigods. The Bible didn’t disenchant the world but it can be a barrier to re enchanting it. The world became disenchanted when we forgot how miraculous life and the beauty of the natural world are just as we find them, no bizarre occurrences or extraterrestrial interference required. We became too enchanted by our powers of invention and description.
Science is only one way in which we have fallen in love with what we can do, forgetting natural splendor. But it is wrong to whitewash all of science that way many scientists are humble but want to know more about nature’s mysteries. That is a good thing.
Tempt them for what? To become Christians or find value in theism? What demographic specifically? The last stat I saw was that 7% of the world is atheistic in nature. Of the other 93%, many of them are not Christian and find belief in God/a higher power to have value.
Just tempt us with solid reasons for God belief. I already found what I needed in the pages of The Matter With Things but i interact with many who do not believe and few will want to read so many pages to see if it will fundamentally change their POV. So other sources to inspire a wider regard for the sacred without just throwing in with any particular tradition is what interests me.
It has seemed to me recently that God has a definite double standard. One for those who wish, or claim to be, holy and the rest of us who just want to live properly.
It’s a bit like joining the army. If you sign up you submit to there authority and discipline. For those who have this aim God expects an attempt at perfection and an acknowledgement of failure, but for the rest he just wants us to live without guilt or coercion
IOW if people want to scrutinise Scripture or conform to a code of practice (Muslim etc) then God treats them with that in mind, but it is by no means mandatory. Christians are notorious for creating rules and demands that God does not seem to actually require.
I do not see the Rule of Love as restricting, or making me jump through hoops. And I do not consider my imperfections to be a barrier between me and God, whether I acknowledge them, or even try to change them, or not.
I have no idea what experience(s) of Christianity you have had, but suffice it to say the infamous Charismatics, or holier than thou churches, or Bible bashers are by no means the norm or the only Christian option.
Richard
PS, continuing the Military analogy, Israel would appear to be conscripted.
I think I just want to live cognizant of the fact that beyond my identity as one individual apart from other individuals that I also have my identity as a part of something greater in this place and time which spans the past, now and the future. All are part of that but we are fortunate if we can feel that it is true. It is like the cells of my body, they are in me and I am them. But I am not diminished when one cell is replaced by another and I don’t think there are other realities where each expired cell will dwell for eternity. Hopping back into the mix seems the better way to go.
Another of my gripes with Christianity has been the emphasis on moral exceptionalism. Treating each other as our neighbor’s in God’s body without getting a medal or setting a record should be enough. When someone else goes rogue and starts harming others it is fine to stick up for oneself and for general good. Sometimes someone has to be the white blood cell. No big deal and definitely better to avoid when possible.
But when I hear bits of scripture or from other religious traditions I find it very easy to find truth in them. But it is never the only truth and I think it is unbecoming not to acknowledge what wise and noble in other traditions.
Mark, I think this is a valuable and interesting thread, but as usual, I find it easier to read what other people have written than talk about what I think or feel on the subject.
There are a number of things involved that make this type of discussion hard (harder all the time) for me:
The format. Trying to put together a sensible thought on a subject that doesn’t really lend itself to the expository writing I’ve done in the past is simply hard. If I am speaking with awe and wonder in relation to God, I’m speaking TO God, or maybe about him in a group with whom I worship. That’s hard enough. How to speak about awe and wonder for God in a way that explains it, I find to be beyond my abilities.
Frustration. My personal frustrations with changes going on around me and that I am experiencing myself make these discussions all the harder. People talk as if everything is set in stone, including themselves. That isn’t possible for me. I have come to see any statement I make as a snapshot of my thought at the moment, which life experience will certainly force me to revise. I have less and less figured out all the time. And am less and less trusting of those who claim they do. Either they haven’t thought things through, or they’ve oversimplified life to fit their own mold.
I’m sure there are more hurdles, but these are enough for my current purposes. To the quote from your OP:
There’s a lot you’ve shared from McGilchrist over the last few years that I’ve found interesting and valuable. However when IM speaks this way I find it possibly as grating as you do Christian statements about God.
I find IM overly focused on the Christian reliance on a fairly specific concept of God that we hold to be sacred, because we believe it is revealed by God for our good. Yes, we study the texts, because we believe that if God bothered to tell us things about him, he thinks they’re important for us to know. Part of what we understand from these texts is that God wants to be known by us, because he loves us. We want to know him, too, and love him.
Already I am leaving the logical, rational zone. I am talking about a love relationship with someone I cannot possibly understand in total, but who bothered to communicate something. This isn’t a matter of disecting a specimine for inspection, but something much more like friends or lovers learning to know each other. Anyone with half a heart doesn’t enter into such a relationship with a check list, ticking off features one has identified and mastered.
For Christians, even cereberal, left-brained-leaning type like me, this works itself out as awe and wonder. I call that prayer and worship. Walking.
To state things that one believes about God, which IM does as well, does not mean that awe and wonder are absent or discounted. On the contrary, this is something that Christians believe we are told should be part of our lives, part of our relationship with God. We shouldn’t be focused on that check list of doctrines and theology. Most of us recognize the difference between theology or doctrine, and communion with God. We value both.
Adam’s point brings the following to my mind. While I don’t understand McGilchrist or you to be attempting to demonstrate God’s existence through science, I think I have seen evidence of something like a traditional notion of natural theology, which looks at the grandure of nature and attempts to understand the existence of God from that. That view is not possible for me; it hasn’t been for a very long time.
However, I have always seen science as an avenue for worshipping God. The more I learn about the natural world, the more it takes my breath away - I was just going over some of my gorgeous fossil photos from Indiana - the more I am able to be in awe of the God I believe is responsible for all this. The material world doesn’t prove God to me, but looking at the material world through eyes of faith allows me to see God as even greater that I understood before. Not so as to check one more thing off my list, but to be in awe. To worship in amazement.
Broad strokes first: His intended audience is me and other people who had lost the capacity for belief in something greater, the ground of Being or God. I don’t think he means to nit pick about how belief is practiced by those who have managed to keep themselves whole in this regard. He makes clear that his own affinity is for less explicit exposition and more contemplative verse along with music and ritual. But I suspect he does that more for my comfort as his intended reader, which is anyone who has become comfortable with holding all that God stuff at arm’s length and generally just tuning it out. It was effective for me. For someone like you, there is no need to talk about the practice of faith from a Martian’s point of view as it is for someone like me. That is only to keep his intended audience from running for the exits.
In what I read last night (p 1868) he was explaining this approach of his in terms of some early ground work he’d laid.
When our assumptions flood in to the available space, they drive out the new before it has a chance to take root. We must first say ‘no’ to the obvious that stands in the way; … Saying ‘yes’ depends on something to say yes to …
At this point we must suspend the action of the left hemisphere, for it would at once try to see all this as a matter of propositional knowledge - and ultimately that is not to be dismissed, since the existence of a divine or sacred realm is not contrary to reason: it’s just that at this stage the left hemisphere is not up to doing the intuiting in the first place. The right hemisphere, however, is better capable of engaging with this whatever-it-is as something experienced and lived; as something relational, and reciprocal, in nature. It starts with the advantage that it ‘believes’, so to speak, that there is a ‘whatever-it-is’ out there with which to engage. ‘Belief’ is not a matter of coming to grips with arcane propositions towards the world as if God exists, in order to open up the possibility of an encounter with whatever the word ‘God’ designates. And it is only through the encounter that we can know - not through argument, or any amount of thinking in the abstract. One can sit on the brink for a lifetime waiting to learn how to swim, but without getting into the water once can never learn to swim at all. ‘Seek not to understand so that you can believe’, wrote St. Augustine, ‘but to believe so that you may understand’. Without having sincerely made that attempt, it is impossible for anyone to know what it is they are denying. To say ‘it’s obviously not true’ is to make a mistake at the very first step’.
Obviously, Kendel, you are not denying anything and are already adept at swimming in these waters. Whereas we who have ‘made a mistake at the first step’ must suspend the action of the left hemisphere (until the RH has first taken the plunge), you may safely intuit a divine or sacred realm with in a LH manner. It doesn’t mean any and everything you intuit will be golden. That isn’t the way intuition works. But you won’t just be continuing to blind yourself as I would be if I didn’t first take the plunge.
Edited to note how very much this way of talking about it makes it sound baptismal.
Time to post my reasons for belief again, because I certainly didn’t start with Christianity. That is only the icing on a cake which begins with psychology, science, existentialism, pragmatism, and a childhood filled with criticisms of the Christian establishment in the U.S. I often say that atheism is preferable to many versions of Xtianity which people are pushing. Sometimes this is because they contradict these reasons below and other times it is because these reasons are far from conclusive and when I see ideas of God pushed with a negative impact on life then I would discard the idea of God before I would accept something like that. I suppose this means life has a greater centrality to my thinking and values. But then I would argue that the person who values life is a better fulfillment of God’s idea of those with the laws of God written on their hearts (a better fulfillment of the command to love God) than those who talk God and religion all day long. Isaiah 1 is good support for this thinking even for Christians – God’s interest is not in religion.
1. As a physicist I have to ask myself as other physicists have asked themselves whether life as we experience really can be summed up in the mathematical equations of physics. My necessarily subjective conclusion, the same as many others, is that the very idea is absurd. Science puts our experience through the filter of mathematical glasses and to be sure this methodology has proven marvelously successful at not only explaining many things but discovering new things about the world that we never expected. But this is just looking at life in one particular way and I think it is quite foolish to confuse this way of looking at things with the reality itself. 2. It was through existentialism that I made a connection that first gave some meaning to the word “God” for me (I was not raised in a religion unless it is the “religions” of liberalism and psychology). I came to the conclusion that the most fundamental existentialist faith was the faith that life was worth living. I also concluded that for theists their faith in God played the same role for them in their lives, suggesting that the two kinds of faith were really the same thing in different words. That equivalence basically became my working definition for “God”, and from there it was a matter of judging what understanding of God best served that purpose. 3. Physicists experience shock and cognitive dissonance when they first understand what quantum physics is saying for it seems to contradict the logical premises of physics and scientific inquiry itself. But there is one thing that makes sense of it to me at least. If the universe was the creation of a deity who wanted keep his fingers in events then these facts of quantum physics would provide a back door in the laws of nature through which He could do so without disturbing the laws of nature. I am not saying that any such conclusion is necessitated by the scientific facts; only that on this subjective level where quantum physics created such cognitive dissonance for so many physicists, that this idea would make sense of it – to me 4. I have considerable sympathy with the sentiments of the eastern mystics that logic is stultifying trap for human thought and consciousness. The result is that even if I found no other reasons to believe in a God or a spiritual side to reality and human existence I would very much see the need to fabricate them for the sake of our own liberty of thought. We need a belief in something transcendent in order for us transcend the limitations of logic and mundane (or material) reasons to give our uniquely human ability for abstraction more substance and life. 5. I feel there are profound pragmatic reasons to reject the idea that reality is exclusively objective because it immediately takes any conviction about reality to a conclusion that the people who disagree with you are detached from reality and delusional or in some other way defective, I don’t believe that this is at all conducive to the values and ideals of a free society. The plain fact is that our direct contact with reality is wholly subjective and it is the objective which is the abstraction that has to be fabricated. Now I certainly think there is very good evidence that there is an objective aspect to reality but I see nothing to support taking this to the extreme of presuming that reality is exclusively objective.
Notice there is nothing about Christianity in any of this, and only 2 is really even about God. They are more about limitations of the scientific worldview, logic, and objectivity – reasons to think there is something more. 3 is a bit slanted towards theism, since this looks far too convenient for a creator who wanted to keep his fingers in events, but other explanations might work also.
Once I embraced subjectivity and was on that search for a God who made life worth living, there are of course reasons why Christianity appealed to me. I will repost those reasons here as well.
1. I was quite a bit surprised how much of the Bible consists of criticism of religion. Christianity is not blind to the problems of religion – far from it. 2. Because of the doctrine of the Trinity, this is not a God made in the image of man. And yet this is not a God who is in any way less than we are. 3. Christianity teaches both that this life is not all there is, but at the same time we have to get the most out of life while we can. 4. What I see taught in Christianity is that there are no ways to God. We cannot do it. This is the gospel of salvation by the grace of God – not by religion or religious knowledge but by the work of God in our lives. Which is not to say that God does not use different religions to teach people. 5. The God I see in Christianity is one who chose love and freedom over power and control. 6.Philippians 2:5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.
To be sure there are many notions of God in Christianity I do not believe in: meglomaniac, purist, hard hearted, unforgiving, controlling, wrathful, and sadistic. And I reject all of these. But there is also another uniquely Christian idea of God which really does appeal to me: the humble God, who is gentle and lowly in heart, who not caring anything about being God, set aside all His power and knowledge to become a helpless human infant, and after growing up perfectly blameless to show how we should live, He was mocked and whipped before being executed on a cross. This He did this in order for us to get past all the lies and misunderstandings, to show how much He loves us and thus to heal our relationship with the infinite God in whom we can find eternal life.
The diversity of Christianity. The witnessing on this forum is not a reflection of the broader Christian faith
Many find their faith directly from their family or childhood with a positive reaction to Christianity. IOW they were never not Christian.
Exposure to the more fanatical sides of Christianity may have a negative effect and create a “view” of Christianity similar to some of those express on this thread.
There is a myth that the scientific mind cannot understand or embrace faith and things tat cannot be proven or identified.
Christianity is not the only religious route to a view or value of God. Without dragging up exclusivity or interfaith relations, the Op is biased towards Christianity as the religious route.
Faith is a very personal thing and how we view the world will affect any theistic understanding
The author I cite seems most familiar with Christianity and Taoism but was raised in neither nor anything else. As someone who develops an appreciation later coming from the arts and philosophy he is more palatable to my own tastes. I thought with all the interest here in apologetics someone might appreciate hearing how it is from someone who has decided God matters even if he doesn’t view that in the settled ways of one born in a tradition. It might be useful to consider what can actually motivate one accustomed to ignoring religion into appreciating belief in God.
Thanks, Mark. This was really helpful. I think I understand your position ans well as IM’s a good deal better.
Thanks for taking the time, @mitchell. Although our experiences are vastly different, I find yours really interesting and appreciate that you have laid it all out so clearly. You have thought through questions that I had never occurred to me, and I find it valuable to read how you have handled them.
I think you are intentionally running with the idea we can know God and receive the gospel without scripture.
How do you explain the gospel without written and/or oral tradition. We know Israelites had both.
Christ said to the disciples that he would “send the Holy Spirit as a helper”…that would seem to be at odds with any claim we can know God from a vacume (that someone hasnt taught about Him)
The bible says “the heavens declare the glory of God”…thats is different to any notion they explain the gospel. It tells usthat the heavens stir up the desire to sewrch for Him…and that is found where? Isnt it the bible and its contained gospel?
If we dont need biblical tuition, why did Christ desire that the gospel be taken to all the world? The gospel is Christ ministry…which included him reading from the scriptures in the temple on a regular basis.
Since you stick to your claim above, im thinking you have the gospel narrative using only astronomical terms?
Before you go too far, can you explain how you would even know the epistomology of the gospel without scripture?
For example…start with original sin? ( the bible tells us the gospel only became necessary after man sinned) what in astronomy explains the origin of sin?