The Popular View of Faith and Reason Is Wrong
May 14th, 2012 by L. James Everett, III.
In Christian history, there have been at least two ways of understanding the definition of Faith and Reason and their relationship to one another. One is correct, the other is massively confused. Unfortunately, the confused version is popular.
The confused version is the following: Faith is a pure act of will that is radically opposed to any kind of evidence. The more evidence, the less room for Faith. The more reason one has for a course of action or for holding a belief, the less doing that action or holding that belief is an act of Faith. Also, Faith is, on this view, sort of a virtuous thing (except it doesn’t have to be a habit). It is a pure act of will that is praiseworthy–a pure act of will without or against reason. The act of will may be an act of intellectual judgment, with no reason or evidence to support that verdict. It may even GO AGAINST evidence or reason, which gets you even more Super Mario points in Heaven.
So, on this popular view, the less evidence, the better. The more room for Faith. On this view, Faith and Reason shall never be friends.
Being ignorant works, however. This view says ignorance leaves room for Faith. Without Faith, it is impossible to please God. Therefore, God would want you to have as little evidence as possible for both (1) your actions, and (2) your beliefs. You have to will yourself to believe. You are obligated by God to pull yourself up by your own belief-bootstraps–without the crutch of evidence, reason, scholarship, good arguments, rational thought, etc. In other words, God have mercy on our sinful souls if we have any shred of evidence that we are sinful!
In one sense, it’s rather hard to argue against the view, because on it’s own account, any argument you give against it is of no use. By it’s own standards, it ignores arguments. Ignoring arguments and reason is the key to being a spectacularly ignorant person.
Usually what follows is that the successfully ignorant person–the person thinks this is authentic Faith–thinks of herself as virtuous, and so she gets puffed up and arrogant. A puffed up, arrogant, ignorant person of Faith, who looks down on us poor, petty people who need, want, value, cherish reason, argument, scholarship, evidence. You poor saps. If you only had more will power, like me, this person seems to say. If she is a Calvinist, she will give God all the credit for what she did, and in doing so, will achieve, in her self-awarenes, complete and total absolution from what would otherwise be the sin of being stupid, foolish, unwise, and arrogant.
She will quote (selectively) passages from the Bible that seem to say that God values childlike ignorance and uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. In doing so, she will be hypocritically using the Bible as Evidence–the Testimony of God–in an attempt to give a Reason why she believes what she does as opposed to the opposite. If you try to point this out to her in a rational way, she will ignore you, because by her own account, proving the conclusion that she is being kind of hypocritical would need evidence, which she has already banished into the 7th level of Satan’s crumbing apartment complex in the metaphysical version of the Bronx.
This is not the view of Faith and Reason that is in the Bible.
The Biblical view of Faith and Reason is that Faith is Belief in Action, propelled forward and supported by Evidence.
Here is one example, of many:
God appears to Moses (Perception is Evidence!), in a burning bush that is not consumed (Reason and Experience point rationally to a miracle being performed). Bushes normally burn up, and don’t normally issue commands. Moses reasons that he can’t be high on drugs. He has no Memory doing drugs that conflicts with this other Evidence.
This is evidence for him to DO what he did. For Moses, Faith and Reason were friends. And because Faith and Reason wre friends, Moses could obey God. And by obeying God he gave the boldest command to the most powerful ruler in the ancient world: Let my people go!
Tags: L. James Everett
Posted in Smart Faith/Sharing Your Faith | Comments (4)
Does God Hate Some People?
April 23rd, 2012 by Jim Byrne
Does God hate some people? No, I don’t believe so.
But I hear some theologians support this claim. Commonly they cite God’s “hate” of those who love violence, make false accusations, or sow discord (Psalms 5:5, 11:5, Proverbs 6:19). I’ve also heard “evangelists” tell the unconverted that God hates them. I’m not sure what result they expect from that. An alternate view was recently Tweeted by an atheist: ”Love the sinner and hate your own sin. Shaddup about other people.”
- “Hate my own sin?” The light of God’s truth helps me to do just that. More and more I see my transgressions of God’s law as vandalizing God’s shalom, the well-being of God’s created order. My selfishness often seems akin to painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa. I learn to hate what is vile and out of place in me.
- “Shaddup about other people?” It might be good to cover over minor slights that I suffer. But if I’ve learned to hate and gently remove greed from my own life, replacing it with generosity, why not help others do the same?
- “Love the sinner?” Yes! But can I manage if I have a nagging fear or belief that God hates them? Does God hate them or love them? I received some good help on this from the late Henry Stob, in his book Ethical Reflections.
For starters, the intuition that the witness of Scripture emphasizes that God is a friend of sinners is a sound one. The Father sent his Son out of love for the world. Christ died for the ungodly while we were still enemies. God showers kindness on the unrighteous to lead them toward repentance because God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Christians are to be perfect imitators of their heavenly father precisely in their love for enemies.
A person can love someone, and yet be angry with them. A person can love someone, and yet judge or punish them. But love, and hate in the usual sense of the words, are strictly antithetical to one another. I might love one person, and hate another. But I can’t love and hate the same person at the same time–in the most usual sense of the words. Maybe we need to distinguish the word “hate” from its meaning.
Jesus once instructed his followers to “hate” their family members. Yet, the total message of the Bible is that we are to love our neighbors, and have a special responsibility to care for parents, spouses, and children. So in this case, “hate” is not the antithesis of love. Rather, it serves to warn us that attachments to family should not displace the rightful place of Jesus in our lives.
Then what could it possibly mean that God who loves sinners, also hates them? God hates their sin. And God’s attack on sin is often painful to the sinner. It may even feel like hatred. But God’s intention is to separate the sin from the sinner, like a surgeon removes a cancer. To accomplish this, God the Father has embraced his sin-alienated creation, surrounding it with God’s arms: God’s Son and God’s Spirit.
The work of separating us from sin has three aspects. God separates us from the penalty of sin, removing guilt and stain. This required the sacrifice of Jesus. God separates us from the power of sin, teaching us to forsake it and walk in obedience to the Father. This learning experience entails personal cost. God separates us from the presence of sin, ushering us into wholeness of the new creation. This path commonly leads through physical death of the redeemed sinner.
What happens if we reject this “separation?” The sinner who resists may suffer to the point of doom. But it is God’s love for sinners that attacks sin.
Consider the cross. Did Jesus die because of God’s hatred of the Son, or because of God’s hatred of sin? The resurrection of Jesus vindicates him as God’s dearly loved Son, while condemning sin in the flesh and satisfying God’s hatred of sin. If God can distinguish our sin from the one who bore them in his own body on the tree, then God can hate the sin and love the the sinner. They are intertwined, but not inextricably.
As Stob put it: “Hate of sin is a divine necessity; hate of men is a divine impossibility.” And, “The sin we must hate, the sinner never.”
________
image credit: cantonbaptist.org
Posted in Evil/Suffering, Smart Faith/Sharing Your Faith | Comments (0)
How to Have Conversations with God
April 16th, 2012 by Jonalyn Fincher
I haven’t always conversed with God. I used to just give God my laundry list.
Heal, help, save, restore, and I praise you for x,y,z. Amen.
White Woods
A few years ago I began taking walks, Frank Laubach style, with God.
Laubach, a missionary to the Philippines learned to practice talking to God and then using his own voice to repeat what he thought God was saying in response. He explains,
I have just returned from a walk alone, a walk so wonderful that I feel like reducing it to a universal rule, that all people ought to take a walk every evening all alone where they can talk aloud without being heard by anyone, and that during this entire walk they all ought to talk with God, allowing Him to use their tongue to talk back–and letting God do most of the talking (Letters by a Modern Mystic, 41).
Laubach let God do the talking with his tongue. Does it sound freaky?
It’s not possession.
It’s not losing consciousness.
It’s simply trying to hear God as best we can.
You listen by talking.
The things you might hear are not prophecy on par with the inspired Word of God, rather what you get is an experience of
Cabin porch overlooking the aspen
- asking God into your life, to contact you where you are and
- hearing something tangible to analyze and compare with Scripture.
But isn’t this mysticism and sort of weird? you might ask.
Yes, it is weird, I’ll admit, if by weird you mean uncommon.
And yes, it is mysticism if you mean “belief in direct experience of transcendent reality or God, especially by means of contemplation and asceticism instead of rational thought.”
But if you mean definition #2 of mysticism “Belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are directly accessible by subjective experience:belief in séances, astral projection, and similar mysticism.
Or definition #3 - Belief that is not based on evidence or subjected to criticism:
Then, no, this isn’t mysticism.
I believe the God of the Bible proved that he wants to engage with us today, even in 2012. He wants to be loved by us, not merely served. ”Love the Lord your God and serve Him” says the law in Deuteronomy.
But loving God means inviting him into the personal every day.
One way I’ve found to do that is to try Laubach’s experiment.
I take long walks in our White Woods among the aspen. I ask God about what’s troubling me. I’ve had long conversations about my family, my mistakes or what I’m supposed to speak on next. I try to answer myself with an open spirit to what God might be saying. I write down what I think I hear him saying and then compare it with Scripture.
I don’t take these words as gospel inspired, but they are usually good news to me.
God always shares things I need to hear. Sometimes I say things that I realize are more me than him (it’s pretty obvious so far because these statements are often shaming or accusatory–remember who is called the Accuser of the Brethren in Rev 12:10?) , often I come away with some very key truth of Scripture, not earth-shattering, but exactly what I needed right then.
Want an example?
What follows is both personal (I was 8 months pregnant and still had one speaking trip left) and yet I subject it to your criticism.
Jonalyn: God, how were you so mindful when you were on earth? What did you do that I can do?
White Woods' mighty aspen
God: I saw people. I was unhurried. I knew my Father was there and was for me.
J: I don’t think I know that.
G: Why do you fear that I am not for you?
J: I don’t know, I’m so sick of always doubting you and your love–will I ever believe you are for me. I think I’m afraid.
G: Of what?
J: I’m afraid that you will leave–that you don’t like me very much.
G: Why?
J: Because I’m so tired and unfit and messy.
G: I want messy people
J: Why?
G: Because you still look like me.
J: I need to know how- how do I look like you?
G: Your hunger for righteousness, your compass strains to point north, you love well.
I have many of these conversations written down, but every time I re-read them I sense God’s nearness, his tenderness, her personal awareness of me. This is the God of Israel orchestrating history and the Shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep for the little lost lamb.
Letting him talk to us takes an ounce of courage, but it truly is simple, as simple, Laubach says, “as opening and closing a swinging door.”
Please open up your questions in the comments below. What do you think of this approach? How have you experienced God speaking to you in this way?
Tags: Jonalyn Fincher
Posted in Grow Your Soul | Comments (18)
Hoping for Happily Ever After
April 9th, 2012 by Sarah Jackson
I’ve been watching ABC’s new television series Once Upon a Time this winter. The series chronicles the plight of a band of fairy tale characters that have been cursed by a wicked queen.
Her curse has thrust them from their fairy tale kingdom into our world, stripped them of their memories of their former lives, and damned them to a life without a ‘happily ever after’.
They wander through life having forgotten who they are.
Not surprisingly, their days lack direction, their relationships easily crumble, and their work is rarely satisfying. But still, they dare to hope that life will get better.
Little Red Riding Hood hopes for recognition at work; Prince Charming hopes to be united with his true love, Snow White; and Jiminy Cricket hopes to help people do the right thing. Hope swells and sustains them, for a time. But then the sharp thorns of injustice and human fallibility puncture their hope, leaving them deflated and disappointed.
I can’t help but remember the wise observation from Proverbs when I watch these fairy tale characters flounder:
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”
I wish this heart sickness were confined to fairyland. It is disease that can consume and devour, with the power to wolf down joy and drain life of its appeal.
It makes hope feel like a not-so-great thing.
And yet the apostle Paul reminds us that there is a hope that does not disappoint:
The “hope of the glory of God.”
I’ve spent a lot of years trying to figure out how to rest on this bedrock hope when the blows of disappointment send me staggering to the ground. Often, I’m not successful. Hope shatters and I thrash about disoriented and disenchanted, anxiously trying to steady my crestfallen spirit.
This month, though, the plight of the characters on Once Upon a Time reminded me what it takes to rest on this sturdy hope of the glory of God.
We must remember who we are.
This is what powered the ancients in Hebrews 11 to maintain deep and steady faith in the midst of disappointment. When God’s promises to them were not fulfilled in their lifetimes they remembered they were “strangers and exiles on earth,” and they fixed their eyes on “a better country,” the heavenly country for which they were made.
We, too, can look forward to this heavenly country. Before long we will breath its sweet air and be met with the approval of the Father. By God’s grace, we will also be met by faces we know—souls we influenced for Christ on earth. And one day God will establish for us all a new heaven on earth. He will vanquish evil from His glorious Kingdom and appoint us to reign and rule with Him.
We were created to glorify God and enjoy his glory forever, happily ever after.
This is a spacious and sturdy hope we can stand on, if only we would fix our eyes on the glories of heaven when shattered hopes threaten to send us reeling.
This month I have taken time to remind myself of my identity by imagining what it will be like to live in a Kingdom that has neither sun nor moon because God’s glory is its light (Rev. 21:23). Imagining got me hoping.
In heaven, I hope to have some deep belly laughs with God. Imagine what that will feel like in a body that hasn’t been weakened by the curse! And imagine what God’s laugh sounds like…
I also hope to play the piano in a celestial symphony (accompanying the angels, of course), and I hope that every time we hear music in heaven we can also smell and taste it.
And most of all, I hope for the day I know the Father fully, even as I am fully known (1 Cor. 13:12). I cannot wait to hear his voice that thunders like ocean waves and courses with love—the voice that breathed stars into the sky and calls dead men to life—say my name.
What do you hope for in heaven?
_________
Image Credit: poptower.com
Tags: Sarah Jackson
Posted in Grow Your Soul, Smart Faith/Sharing Your Faith | Comments (2)
Evidence is Closer than You Think
April 2nd, 2012 by L. James Everett, III.
The last post considered the nature of Belief. The very nature of Belief prevents it from being forced upon you. You find things to be true, sometimes based on manipulation, sometimes based on honest mistakes, sometimes based on good evidence.
How do we get our Beliefs to be True? For that, we use Evidence. Evidence points to Truth.
Evidence is “a good reason to think something is true.”
Evidence comes in at least 4 types:
- Perceptual Experiences,
- Testimony of others,
- Memory, and
- Reason, Logic, Inference to the Best Explanation or Rational Intuition.
All four of the above types of evidence can be wrong or be manipulated. For example, I once stared at a mailbox for 5 minutes because at that hour of the morning, in the fog, it looked like either a deer or a mailbox, and I couldn’t tell which. I reasoned: “If it stays there all day without moving, and the mailman comes and puts the mail in it, it’s a deer. A very nice deer. On the other hand, if it leaps and bounds over that fence with effortless grace, it is a mailbox−the coolest mailbox in this world.”
Perception (the 5 senses) can lead us astray. But, ironically, it is usually other perceptions that correct our problem perceptions. I looked harder, and it didn’t move. I kept looking. Along with reason, background experience, memory, testimony about the behavior of deer, etc, I realized that my perception was more logically consistent with a mailbox. I confirmed this by walking up for a closer look.
What about testimony? Can testimony be wrong? Can people lie?
No, they can’t. Take my word for it.
I once had a friend who I later found out was a pathological liar. That is, he would lie habitually and often for no discernible reason. I noticed, we would go to Starbucks, and asked what he ordered, he would lie, for no reason. It was almost as if he didn’t know he was lying. I later found out, and so did his wife, that he was involved in about 20 affairs over the past few years. Yikes. So much for that “friendship.” BTW: Do you believe someone when they tell you that they are a pathological liar? The last conversation I had with this man, he told me as much.
But, does that mean testimony is no good as evidence? Nope. In fact, the reason we are able to tell that someone is lying or inaccurate is often times the testimony of others.
Testimony includes signs, maps, photos, books, websites: anything portaying that something is the case, put there by someone else. For example, how do you know you land in Chicago? (A voice tells you). How do you know what highway you are on? (you see a sign, put there by someone else). How do you know England is an island? (You didn’t verify this first-hand). How do you know the Earth is spherical, rather than flat? (You maybe saw photos taken by NASA). We do the best with what we have.
How about memory? Memory is not perfect. But it is reliable. Ironically, the way I know my memory is not perfect is that I remember it failing me at some point in the past. Must not be too bad, eh? My only evidence that it is imperfect is itself.
Reason is wonderful. It is strange to me that more people don’t take advantage of the mulitplicity of opportunities to increase their reasoning abilities by taking Logic. I think it should be required in K-12 and again in college and again in grad school. Reason is the only source of evidence that one can get better at by studying. It is like a muscle that can atrophy or get stronger. It hurts to exercise it–exercising hurts. But, it is healthy.
To sum up this post: Evidence is closer than you think–it comes in at least 4 forms:
- Perception, the 5 senses
- Testimony of others, including signs, books, maps, photos, websites, anything giving information that was put there by someone else
- Memory
- Reason, Logic, Inference to the Best Explanation, Intuition
We are intimately aware of Evidence. We have always relied upon it. It is hugely important. It is how God made us.
What about Truth? Isn’t Truth relative to the individual?
Not really.
And please, point out if you think I’m wrong, where I am wrong, how it could be better stated, or whathavyou.
Tags: L. James Everett
Posted in Smart Faith/Sharing Your Faith | Comments (0)
