At the prompting of a good friend, I am starting to revisit theological questions. Or more accurately, I am again look at religion and particularly theology from a philosophical perspective. My closer friends will know that I accept, to a fundamental degree, that the firm foundations of religious faith can never come from reason alone. I accept the need for Kierkegaard's "leap of faith". That said, any faith that is blind, that is reached without deep questioning and searching to me is fundamentally hollow, and perhaps even rotten, a soft center without any weight.
For me, one of the most difficult philosophical (let alone religious) problems that exist is the problem of evil. Not merely that there is evil in the world, but that it is often the completely innocent that suffer unjustly. Christianity though in particular has a much greater burden in relation to the problem of evil because they posit a God who is personal, whom you can seek comfort in, pray and talk to, who watches over each and every person just as he watches over the sparrow.
While a humanist can bite the bullet and say that injustice is often a brutal fact of a cold, uncaring world a religious person cannot. A volcano doesn't have intentions, nor an earthquake. It cares not for the fact that a town or a city or a school or tens of million people living nearby. But Christians cannot escape the question of how an all knowing, all powerful God could allow for those many thousands of innocents to die. Indeed, some psychologists have suggested that it is precisely in the fact of the inexplicable brutality of existence, in our need to find some kind of meaning in the very first place, that many turn to God as an answer.
As Peter Singer argues, I have never been able to find a satisfactory answer to this question short of saying that God's ways are unknowable, and any attempt by feeble human minds to understand God's intentions is akin to a monkey trying to grasp the depth and power of Shakespeare. I find this reply unsatisfactory. To begin with, the argument is circular. It attempts to argue that we are incapable of knowing God precisely by presupposing that God is omnipotent and omniscient as well as good, the very three things that seem incompatible together when we deal with unjust evil in the world. More damning for me is the denigration of reason. As I said earlier, any faith that I shall ever come to will be through constant thought, struggle and reflection. It is far far too easy, and correspondingly also too dangerous to just say God's reason is unknowable. Let us not seek to grapple or understand. Let us just accept.
Perhaps that is the crux of religion. Acceptance. Submission (which is the major tenant of Islam). Thy kingdom come they will be done, now and forever. Amen.
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3 comments:
(1) The problem with "leap of faith" as an argument for scepticism with respect to religion is that other positions, such as one that is based on science, likewise beget a "leap of faith". How do we navigate through the various positions, given that all of them in some sense demand faith from us?
See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
(2) In the case of Christianity, faith is, very roughly, conviction in the belief that Jesus died for our sins so that we might have everlasting life. The "leap of faith" that is required from us is the fact of the resurrection, which seems to be historically supported by evidence such as a stone turned away from the grave, the missing body, etc.
It turns out that the leap of faith needed from us is very small, since the Bible does seem to hold accurate recordings or reportage of events from the past. Whatever differences of translation or editing appears to concern only minute differences of spelling or grammar, rather than change of meaning.
(3) It does seem rather melodramatic to me, that you only highlight a dogmatic extreme form of religion. In fact, many intelligent people who are so-called religious not only question their beliefs on an everyday basis, they also try to see if evidence or support can be found for their beliefs. It would be interesting if you would discuss a more subtle or nuanced form of religion in your blog.
Regarding (1): Well, I would agree that no single position will guarantee absolute certainty. Which is why we speak of scientific theories, backed up with empirical evidence rather than scientific truths (which is rather less than the absolute truth that any religion claims). If I am take anything on faith, Science at least allows for the possibility of error, and a systematic means of repeatedly testing for error. When one famous biologist was accused of dogmatism in his belief in evolution and asked what would cause him to abandon his belief, he replied "a fossilized dog in the pre-Cambrian!"
More importantly, there is a real difference in the degree of faith required between religion and science. In living our everyday lives we make decisions based on empirical evidence and rational analysis. There is a huge difference between the faith required to believe in a metaphysical entity without cannot be observed and yet is said to be able to transcend fundamental physical laws at will, and having "faith" in scientific theories whose faith we renew in tiny everyday actions.
(2) The famous British historian E H Carr said that before we read history, we must first examine who wrote the history. The gospels themselves were written by close companions and followers of Christ who were determined to spread his message. A group hardly predisposed to write an objective account. Furthermore, the writers of the gospels themselves were not first hand observers (except Matthew) and their accounts were often pieced together from earlier verbal sources. That is why there are issues with contradiction and chronology. As for evidence what other written accounts do we have for the resurrection OTHER than the bible? Are there any other corroborative sources?
(3) I am not being dogmatic in the extreme. I am hardly being Dawkinesque in looking at Religious Fundamentalists. The point of my post was that I thought that ultimately to have faith in a religion in any coherent form requires suspending rationality. Question this argument if you will, but don't accuse me of being dogmatic. That is precisely the kind of unthinking, unreflective knee jerk response that proves my point!
Finally, I cannot but help that this post is primarily related to the problem of evil. Perhaps you have a response to it instead of nitpicking over smaller points?
Stumbled over this, and thought I would share my thoughts.
Forgive me if this is far too not as rigorous and concise as I would like it to be. It will, trust me, be long, rambly and unorganised.
Because of its ridiculous length, and because I am too lazy to think of an alternative, I have posted it here. Hope that you'll find it useful.
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