Evidence Demands a Verdict: On Generalizations and Presuppositions

Many Christians frequently dismiss evidence by pointing to a flaw or flaws in the ideological framework of the ones presenting the evidence. This is often accomplished by reductionism and over-generalization. For example, a friend of mine rejects evolution because the scientists who advocate it have materialist presuppositions. Believing already that reality is made up of the natural, material world that we perceive and nothing more, they exalt science and reject all theology. Thus, they get evolution. This would be a good reason to reject evolution, if it were true. But it's not true. While I agree we should reject materialism (see my blogs on materialism, here), this reasoning fails to recognize that there are plenty of scientists who embrace evolution but do not embrace scientific naturalism, and plenty who are theists, and plenty who are Christians.

Similarly, many Christians like to dismiss evidence in Scriptural study because of the supposed presuppositions of the discoverers. An archeologist will tell them that there is no archeological support for the fall of Jericho story, and that the evidence actually points against such a story, rendering it virtually impossible to possess genuine historicity. A Christian might say that such evidence can be rejected because those who analyze and study it are liberal academics who reject the authority of Scripture, and so seek to find ways of debunking it. This is such a terribly false generalization that many Christian biblical scholars would find offensive.

Side note: This does not represent all of conservative Christianity's responses to such evidence; there are conservative biblical scholars who engage in a positivist mindset about the historicity of many of the Bible's stories--whether or not their arguments hold any water is a completely different discussion.

My last example comes from Greg Boyd's testimony. When he was a teenager, he found out about several of the Bible's contradictions, and they gravely disturbed him. He highlighted all of them that he could find and brought them to his Pentecostal pastor. "What do I do with these?!" he asked, "How can the Bible have contradictions?!" His pastor paused and frankly asked him, "Greg, did you have sex out of wedlock?"

This pastor refused to engage a discussion about Bible contradictions, and chose to label Greg as a rebellious sinner, and therefore, able to be ignored. Forget the evidence, forget the fact that I'm staring contradictions in the face; if I can find out that they're coming from a sinful, rebellious teenager, I don't have to deal with them. Such a blatant rejection of evidence reveals a lack of any desire to find out what truth actually is, and instead reveals a mind that only wants to blindly accept an ignorant bliss.

Now, I'm a child of postmodernism, so I do realize our subjectivity and our presuppositions, and that all reality is interpreted reality, all facts are interpreted. However, this does not mean I just embrace whatever presuppositions I have as true, and judge reality based only on weighing presupposition against presupposition. If I am interested in what is true, I will try to rise above my presuppositions, even though I will never do so fully. If I am interested in what is true, I will listen to evidence and let that evidence inform my thinking.

The church wanted to silence Galileo because he discovered heliocentrism. The Bible seems to suggest that the earth is the center of the universe, and the sun revolves around it; so they rejected Galileo's claim that the earth revolves around the sun--something we all know to be true today.

Don't make sweeping generalizations about presuppositions to silence evidence. Let the evidence inform your worldview.

Book Review: Divine Presence Amid Violence by Walter Brueggemann

Brueggemann, Walter. Divine Presence Amid Violence: Contextualizing the Book of Joshua. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2009. $8.37. pp.ix-82. ISBN 978-1-60608-089-4. ★★★★☆

In Divine Presence Amid Violence, Walter Brueggemann tackles the question, "How could the God of the Bible mandate violence?" by talking about the nature of biblical revelation and using Joshua 11 as a case study.

Informed by Norman Gottwald's Marxist-like understanding of Israelite sociology, Brueggemann says that the city-states in Joshua 11 were "monopolies of socioeconomic, political power that [were] managed in hierarchal and oppressive ways" (15) and were propped up chiefly by their military power, their horses and chariots (Josh. 11:4), which "symbolize and embody oppression . . . [and] serve only to maintain the status quo in which some dominate others." So, he says, "Yahweh authorizes their destruction" since he is "the sworn enemy of such modes of power" (33).

Reading the book, this "contextualization" seems a little too easy. However, I think Brueggemann makes a pretty good case for this understanding of such cases of divinely sanctioned violence. That being said, I doubt it can be maintained throughout the Old Testament, for every instance of so-called 'holy war'. It also begs the question, Is violence justified if it disarms the powers of oppression? Or, better, Would Jesus condone violence if it disarmed the powers of oppression? For many, this is a simple question; but I think if we're honest enough, it isn't so easy. Brueggemann seems to think violence would be justified in such cases, as Yahweh's mandate was an "authorization for a liberating movement--which [was] sure to be violent, but only violent against weapons" (23, emphasis mine).

The question of divine violence is not the only one addressed in this little book; he also deals with the question of revelation, a topic about which he has a lot of insight. He says, "the canonical literature does not offer a settled, coherent account of reality; rather it provides the materials for ongoing disputatious interpretation" (10). The Israelites were also engaged in such disputatious interpretation, which Brueggemann says they did through memory (particularly that of the Exodus), a yearning for justice, and established leadership (27).

With this, he suggests that revelation in passages like Joshua 11 "is not self-disclosure of God," but a communal interpretation of events based on memory, yearning and leadership (35-39). Memory, because they learned from the Exodus that Yahweh is the enemy of oppressive powers; yearning, because Yahweh is the God of the liberation and justice that they so earnestly desire; and leadership, because of the chosen mediators of the presence of Yahweh, particularly Moses (see Josh. 11:12, 15, 20 and 23).

The question then becomes, Do we accept their interpretation of God's character? This is a question Brueggemann leaves open. He is not uncritical of Israel's theology, but he does provide a contextualized framework through which Joshua 11 can be studied that can make their theology seem less primitive. That this framework can be applied to all the holy war texts, as well as the other texts in which Yahweh sanctions violence, is what I doubt.

Overall, this is well worth the read. I recommend reading it before buying it to see if you want to keep it around; it's very short and can easily be read in one sitting. In fact, if one were to put it on normal-size paper, without the extra spacing between lines, it would be a long article rather than a book. I wish Brueggemann would have dedicated a more extensive work to this topic. He has the resources, and clearly doesn't mind writing (seriously, how does he write so many books?). It would have been beneficial if he had tackled several texts, instead of just the one. Nevertheless, it's a good read, and if Joshua 11 bothers you (and it should), Brueggemann can definitely help.

Purchase Divine Presence amid Violence on Amazon (here)

Ken Ham Makes Me Want to Be an Atheist

Ken Ham with Answers in Genesis recently started a billboard campaign countering atheists. This billboard campaign has to cost at least 100s of thousands of dollars to fund. This is nothing new for Ken Ham, who has spent $27 million dollars on his Creation museum, in which he is trying to build a replica of Noah's Ark.

I recently read a tweet from an atheist in response to these billboards: "To all those who believe in the Bible: Thank god it's fiction." How did Ham think atheists were going to respond? Did he really think they would look at a billboard that said, "Thank God you're wrong," and think, "Oh my gosh! I need to become a Christian! I just realized I am so wrong! Thank you, Ken Ham!"?

No. What was always going to occur was a bunch of atheists rolling their eyes at a silly attempt to stick it to them. What it was always inevitably going to lead to was atheists hating Christians more and walking farther away from Christianity. It also inspires Christians to consider walking away from Christianity because of the ignorance of "Christians" like Ken Ham.

But what really bothers me about this pathetic attempt at evangelism, is the money involved. How many people could be helped with the money going into these billboards? "This does help," Ham would say, to which I would do what most people probably do seeing these billboards--roll my eyes.

Imagine if he dedicated 100s of thousands of dollars to helping those in poverty, feeding them, clothing them, paying rents, putting people through college. But no. He decided that arrogantly stating, "Thank God you're wrong" to a bunch of atheists would help more people--a simply idiotic notion.

People like Ken Ham bring me so much pain, because I know people that struggled with Christianity and ultimately couldn't accept it because of things like this. Indeed, if Jesus was like the Ken Hams of this world, I would walk away from Christianity as well.

But Jesus didn't do stupid stuff like this. Jesus healed the sick, provided for the poor, showed mercy and love. He embodied a mission, and people just started following him. Jesus was humble and cared about the needs of others. We need a humble, missional approach to evangelism that works itself out in providing for people's needs. That's what we need to be spending our money doing, not supporting the insane productions of navel-gazing people like Ken Ham.

Tribute to My Mother: What she taught me and how it made me who I am today

I've always been very close with my mom--very close with my entire family, actually. Because of our closeness, the struggles we had individually were almost never hidden. If my sister was depressed, we all knew; if I was depressed, they all knew. We have always been very open and intimate with each other. So, again and again I have seen my mom cry a flood of tears. Often included in these tears were harsh words directed at God. While my mom has always been a faithful Christian, time and time again I watched her lash out at God in ways only the prophet Jeremiah would understand.

I can't even count all the times I witnessed my mother wrestle with God, screaming at him, demanding answers. She wasn't just going to take it. While her speech was often unfairly directed at God, attributing things to his work that I don't think should have been attributed to him, we can see people doing this throughout Scripture and God seems able to handle it.

It wasn't until I took a prophets class in college that I realized my mother is like Jeremiah. Jeremiah stood before God in utter autonomy and demanded that he take the prophet's turmoil seriously and do something about it. My mother was the same way. She often felt completely abandoned and forgotten by God. In her utmost vulnerability, she would reach the end of herself and would no longer have any of it. You will not forget me, God! She, like Jeremiah, could not get rid of the burning fire of God within her. To quit was not an option; there was only to wrestle.

Walter Brueggemann calls complaint addressed to God a person's moment of omnipotence; denying ourselves this omnipotence, he says, produces "'false selves' who cannot be honest before God and so must 'fake it' with God." My mother took no part in this. If one is experiencing enough pain, one can no longer fake it. Perhaps it was because she experienced immense pain over and over again that she refused faking it altogether. The affect that seeing my mother's moments of omnipotence has had on me is immense and cannot be described accurately.

Because of what I saw in my mother, I was sensitive to it when I read Scripture. I saw people like Moses, David, Job, Jeremiah, and even Jesus modeling this same autonomous, omnipotent speech towards God. I was also sensitive to seeing it in God himself, who often lamented to his people, crying out, 'Why?!' I owe these observations, at least in part, to my mother, who modeled a lament-filled intimacy with God, propped up by a faith that wrestled with God.

Only recently have I realized how influential my mother has been in my intellectual and spiritual life. My entire life is a story of a boy wrestling with God. I too have no room for faking it. I will stand before God and demand before I simply take it. I do not merely accept what I am told, or the traditional orthodox answer for the questions I have. My questions will be taken seriously, and I will not be given some kind of flippant, pat answer to the burdensome questions that come up.

What I saw in my mother was a refusal to simply accept the status quo. When something is wrong, it sure as hell is wrong and she voiced that wrongness and wasn't going to be stopped. This is the very work of a prophet--giving a voice to the pain. I saw my mother throughout my life giving voice to her pain and the pain of those around her, and that has inspired me greatly. Intellectually, I refuse to accept the status quo. If there are questions, or if there is something wrong, I will voice it and I won't be stopped. Spiritually, if there is pain within me or around me, that pain will be given a voice. My mother taught me how to embrace pain, the very thing Jesus did in the incarnation. One might be able to say that at the heart of all of my views, theological, political, whatever, is the influence of my mother's fierce and intimate relationship with God. I owe so much to her.

Thank you mom.

Book Review: Texts of Terror by Phyllis Trible

Trible, Phyllis. A Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives. Grand Rapids: Fortress Press, 1984. $13.60. pp.ix-128. ISBN 0-8006-1537-9. ★★★★★

I bought a used copy of Texts of Terror and found that, despite describing the condition as "Used - Very Good," the previous owner took a paper clip or something and carved on the cover under the title: "Very bias Account." I guess he didn't like it (maybe it wasn't a 'he'...maybe). I thought, to be fair, it does say "Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives." The author introduces her bent right in the title, so why was he so surprised that he carved a warning on the cover before selling it?

After reading the book, I think the previous owner had to have much more of a bias than Trible does. In fact, I found it funny that Walter Brueggemann in his forward for the book said things like, "[Trible's] presentation is free of every theoretical encumbrance." (p.ix) Indeed, while her four chapters wrestle with sagas that are particularly troublesome for feminists (Hagar, Gen. 16:1-16, 21:9-21; Tamar, 2 Sam. 13:1-22; an unnamed concubine, Judg. 19:1-30; and the daughter of Jephthah, Judg. 11:29-40), she is very fair in her assessments of them, and does not impose some kind of agenda onto the texts.

In fact, Trible's treatment of the texts is where the quality of her work lies. We have here an example of rhetorical criticism in its purest form. Her attention to detail in analyzing the narratives often produced wonderful insights, so that no page was left insipid. For example, Judges 19:30--at the end of story about the unnamed concubine being captured, betrayed, raped, tortured, murdered, dismembered and scattered--says, "And all who saw it said, 'Such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day.'" Trible observed that the "verbal forms and the object [of the verse] are all feminine gender,"which , she says, "highlight[s] the woman who is the victim of terror." (p.81) Just about every page includes interesting observations like this.

Trible's studies revealed a grand poetry of the biblical prose, a mark that must have influenced her own writing, as Texts of Terror is extremely well-written. When talking about the statement the editor of Judges made after the story of the unnamed concubine--"in those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes"--Trible made a clever observation considering the Davidic monarchy: "David pollutes Bathsheba; Amnon rapes Tamar; and Absalom violates the concubines of his father. In those days there was a king in Israel, and royalty did the right in its own eyes." (p.84) The book is full of such clever word-play.

Her analysis of the sagas themselves is equally commendable. So many of the biblical narratives are written so that a lot happens in just a few verses. Trible slows it down. Each story as presented in her book is read with eagerness, as it moves along with a building intensity. She is a fantastic story-teller.

Going into her work, I was expecting an attempt to resolve the theological issues raised by the narratives she covers. Why did Yahweh tell Hagar to return to Abram and Sarai? Why didn't Yahweh intervene to tell Jephthah not to sacrifice his daughter like he did with Abraham and Isaac? However, theological issues are not the focus here. Trible's focus was to single out women in the Bible who suffered terrible defeats, and who have so often been unheard and overlooked in biblical study. She focused on giving a voice to the voiceless, in order for the reader to do the same. This, she accomplished, and she did it well.

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Book Review: A Whirlpool of Torment by James L. Crenshaw

Crenshaw, James L. A Whirlpool of Torment: Israelite Traditions of God as an Oppressive Presence. Grand Rapids: Fortress Press, 1984. $15.26. pp.vii-128. ISBN 978-158983349-4. ★★★★☆

In this book, James Crenshaw covers five Hebrew Bible tales in which God subjects one of his creatures to a test that amounts to considerable oppression. These are: Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, Jeremiah's confessions, the story of Job, Ecclesiastes, and Psalm 73.

The language used of God's activity in these stories is often over-stated by the author. For example, in assessing the "monstrous test" by a "fickle God" to his loyal servant Abraham, Crenshaw acknowledges that the story of Abraham and Isaac "stands at the liminal moment when human sacrifice ceases to commend itself as the proper means of expressing religious devotion" (p.26), but he doesn't entertain this as a possible motive for God's actions--instead, he resorted to making God out to be a monster. While the severity of the test has rightfully been emphasized, we should still be aware of the nuances present in the text.

Another example is that of his treatment of Job, which I found to be the least insightful section of the book. There, the story of Job is presented as purely between God and the man, where God is the enemy directly inflicting Job with terrible atrocities. Crenshaw severely downplays the presence of Satan (or 'the Satan') in the story, even referring to him as one of God's sons, who does nothing without divine approval (pp.58-59). He also leaves out any discussion of God's description of his battle with the chaos monsters. Surely in a section dealing with the theology of Job, Crenshaw would consider God's own response to Job!

Later in the book, in Crenshaw's assessment of Psalm 73, he says of v.22 ("I was stupid and unknowing; I was like Behemoth before you"), "Anyone who questions God's goodness presumes to know more than is accessible to mere mortals" (p.107). This is a concept I think he should have pursued further, especially in his treatment of Job, for this is the same conclusion Job came to after God unveiled to him the complexity of the universe, which is filled with cosmic warfare with chaos. The chaos monster theme is present in Psalm 73 as well, with the mention of Behemoth. Rather than fleshing out these vital portions of the texts, Crenshaw presents God as the main bad guy, the oppressive force in the narratives. In the case of Job, I think this is far from the truth.

The author of Psalm 73 learned in the process of writing the song that God is not the one behind everything. He starts out with an understanding that "faithfulness to God was rewarded by unrelenting suffering," that "God [had not been] good to the pure in heart" (p.103)--but then, his theology changes. Instead of God inflicting woe onto one of his pure-in-heart, now, "God was napping, for the world had fallen into the hands of violent people" (p.106). Then, another change occurs at the end with v.22, when he realizes that he, like Job, "spoke of things he did not understand" (Job 42:3), recognizing that the universe is more complex than he gave it gave it credit for. Crenshaw describes this process well, and I quite enjoyed this chapter.

The chapter on Ecclesiastes is probably the best scholarly work in the book, no doubt because Crenshaw is one of the leading scholars on biblical wisdom literature. His description of the spiritual state of the author was quite compelling and thought-provoking. As was his treatment of Jeremiah's laments, the brokenness and angst of which he captured quite well, and the content of which I never grow tired of studying.

Crenshaw also offers some good insights on moving beyond these stories to actual theology. He states, "the first principle of biblical faith is the assurance that God has crossed the chasm separating the finite and infinite, thus enabling creatures to recognize the holy," and the second is "the concession that all knowledge of God is partial" (p.77). For instance, he says there "is a fundamental difference between saying that God is an enemy and reporting that Job perceived God as an enemy" (p.116). With this, I wholeheartedly agree. Just because the experience of one of the Bible characters caused him to see God a certain way does not itself mean we should embrace that theology.

When this book was released, not a lot had been written about the intensely negative depictions of God in the Hebrew Bible. I think maybe Crenshaw wanted to break that spell by exploiting examples of such negative theology. What we find in his book is a pull-up-your-sleeves-and-dive-in treatment of such negative depictions. He is brutally honest--which might have been why he sometimes overstated his claims. Nevertheless, this book will force the reader to be honest about the text and wrestle with it, as he has done. I can't say it offers a resolution to the material, as he doesn't necessarily deny or affirm the theological truth of the oppressive traditions, but leaves the ambiguity there, settling for "a hidden God" (p.114). Such a conclusion does not lick the problem, but merely restates it.

Purchase A Whirlpool of Torment on Amazon (here)

Part II: Materialism, the Universality of Faith, and the Worth of a Worldview

Continuing my discussion of materialism, I think Christian theism has much more to offer personal experience.

First, while we have seen it is not reasonable to believe that there is nothing beyond the physical realm of which we are conscious, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to suggest that, if we do accept with faith the reality of the physical world,(11) and since experience tells us that reality is dependent upon consciousness, that "the ‘real’ world is the experienced world, the world that exists in conscious experience,"(12) then it would make sense—but would not necessarily follow—that the world is dependent upon an ultimate consciousness; i.e. God. Just as reality wouldn’t exist for us if we didn’t have consciousness, so it is not unreasonable to claim, if reality does indeed exist, its existence is dependent upon God’s consciousness. As Ward says, "Just as my experiences . . . wouldn’t exist without me, without my mind, so I think objective reality wouldn't exist without the mind of God."(13)

Christian theism also offers a possible explanation for the reaching-out of the world, the emptiness of nature. Paul said, "the whole creation has been groaning" (Rom. 8:22). We reach out intellectually, existentially, and emotionally because, as Newbigin says, we have "infinite desires beyond the satisfaction of our biological necessities."(14) Or, in Augustine’s words, "our heart is restless until it finds rest in [God]."(15) Blaise Pascal describes this beautifully:

What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.(16)

Are we to accept that our insatiable desire, our inner restlessness, our helpless craving, our infinite abyss, can simply be reduced to the workings of evolution? The one who claims such a thing is not being honest with himself/herself.

Christian theism is also much more satisfying with regard to love. Jefferson Aeroplane sang of wanting and needing someone to love. The Beatles sang, "All you need is love!" John said, "love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1 Jn. 4:7-8). It is more reasonable to put our faith in Christian theism, which holds that we feel an overwhelming desire to love and be loved because there is a God of love that loves and desires to be loved by us, than it is to put our faith in materialism, which holds that love is simply a byproduct of evolution.

Another topic on which Christianity has much more to offer is that of free will. Materialism suggests that free will is an illusion. Christianity suggests that free will was the necessary component to a mutual love relationship with God. He wanted us to have autonomy so that we can freely enter communion with him. Psalm 8:5-8 quite profoundly describes this autonomy:

You have made [human beings] a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

Not only have we been created with free will, but each with uniqueness and beauty. Paul says that we are God’s poeima, his masterpiece (Eph. 2:10). No two masterpieces are exactly alike. Christian theism sees the uniqueness of each person and attributes it to the creative workmanship of God, beckoning us to join in that creativity and fashion our own masterpieces—"be fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 1:22). Materialism sees the uniqueness and creativity of each person, and reduces it to biological phenomena. Which explanation is more worthy of our faith?

A subject most difficult for materialists is morality, as their explanations of it are utterly bankrupt. Richard Dawkins says that we have to construct our own morality.(17) Such a claim has no rebuttal to relativism. If my construction of morality maintains that it is good if I steal from Dawkins, then, if I do steal from him, he cannot claim that my stealing from him was wrong. He would only be able to say that he believes it was wrong, and why should I adhere to his construction of morality?(18)

In Christian theism, on the other hand, we have a solid foundation on which to understand morality. We put our faith in Jesus Christ, who gave us the perfect good from which we can measure what is morally right. This morality is defined by self-emptying, other-focused love (Phil. 2:3-11)—running completely counter to social Darwinism’s self-centered, survival-of-the-fittest ideology, which Dawkins himself recognizes as morally depraved.(19)

Timothy Jennings has observed that nature is at its best when it is taking part in a kind of self-emptying, other-focused love. In the hydrologic cycle, the oceans give water to the clouds, which give water to the land, which gives water to the oceans. In the oxygen cycle, we give plant-life carbon dioxide, and through photosynthesis plant-life gives us oxygen. These are processes of self-emptying, other-focused giving, which Jesus ultimately modeled for us by giving up his life on the Cross.(20)

We could embrace our experience of the world and believe that our existential transcendence of the physical world points to the existence of a transcendent God; that our endless desire to love and be loved points to a God of love; that our free will and unique creativity point to a creative God who wants us to be free and to participate in his creative activity; that our inherent sensitivity to morality points to a moral standard provided by a perfect God—or, we could believe with the materialists that life is simply about survival and everything we experience is merely the work of nature, that our experiences are more illusionary than genuine. Again I ask, which worldview is more worthy of our faith?

I do not claim that all these considerations prove that Christianity is true. Neither Christianity nor materialism can be sufficiently proven as true. They both require faith. While much more could be added, a case has been made that Christianity should be preferred over materialism, that it is more worthy of our faith, because it takes seriously our experience of the world, instead of reducing that experience to the work of the world. Christianity has much more to offer our inner-selves (cf. Ps. 51:6) than the meaninglessness of materialism.

Too long have materialists acted like their view of the world is the most reasonable and factual. In reality, they exercise just as much faith as Christians do in positing that there is nothing beyond nature, nothing beyond our consciousness, and that we can fully rely on our perception of the natural world.

If there is room to doubt such a belief system—and we have seen that such room for doubt is definitely there—then why embrace such a futile, empty worldview? Why put our faith in something that offers nothing to our personal experience, but rather gives us a very pointless and hopeless view of life that will inevitably lead to despair? Why not put our faith in something that speaks to what we experience to be true, and has an answer for our most intimate desires? As Paul saw of the people in Athens (Acts 17:16-34), many worship an unknown god; what Christianity offers is the identity of that God. 

Notes:
(11) While some of my comments might make me sound like I believe the physical world is just some kind of matrix, I don’t think we should reject the reality of the world we perceive simply because we can’t know for certain that it actually exists in the way it is perceived. Matrix-like understandings of the world are as meaningless as materialism. We should simply accept the world we are given—but should also humbly acknowledge our inability to know with certainty.
(12) Ward, More Than Matter?, 134.
(13) Keith Ward in BiolaUniversity, “Science, Mind, Religion, and Reality,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRt7qCuwj20.
(14) Newbigin, 179.
(15) Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 3.
(16) Blaise Pascal, Pensees, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1995), 45.
(17) Richard Dawkins, interview by Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, Comedy Central, September 24, 2013.
(18) For a classic treatment of morality, see C.S. Lewis, “Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe,” in Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1952), 3-28.
(19) See Wendy Wright, interview by Richard Dawkins, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AS6rQtiEh8.
(20) See Timothy Jennings, The God-Shaped Brain (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013), 24-26.

Materialism, the Universality of Faith, and the Worth of a Worldview, Part I

There is a widely-held misconception in our culture that Christianity and science are in opposition. On one end of this dichotomy is the anti-intellectualism of fundamentalist Christianity that sees science as a threat to a Bible-based understanding of creation.

On the other end, subject to much less critique, are the materialists with the understanding that reality is limited to the physical world that we perceive, rejecting any and all talk of a metaphysical realm and so operating with the mindset that science is incompatible with religion.

The latter of these two is often seen as more science- and fact-based and so, more reasonable. Materialists are the sophisticated ones, chin-up and aristocratic in their analysis of petty religious tendencies. My purpose here is to pull the rug out from under this Enlightenment arrogance by exposing their dependence on faith. With faith as the common requirement for materialism and Christianity established, the issue becomes which worldview is more worthy of one’s faith. It will be shown that Christianity meets this criterion far better than materialism, as it takes seriously personal experience and speaks to the needs of that experience, while materialism simply reduces that experience to the illusory work of nature. 

Materialism, or what Steve Wilkens and Mark Sanford call scientific naturalism, "holds that all that exists is physical and can be reduced to its elemental material composition."(1) Advocates of this position have to take for granted, flippantly dismiss, or attempt to explain away consciousness. Daniel Dennett, in his monumental work Consciousness Explained, suggests that consciousness is simply a product of brain states, and could be given to a machine if the proper scientific advancement is reached.(2) 

The major problem with this, and the particular aspect of consciousness that materialists have to ignore, is that Dennett cannot prove that the material world exists beyond his consciousness. Sure, in the reality he experiences, maybe he can explain consciousness as a by-product of evolution, but he would have to provide evidence that the natural world he perceives actually exists outside of his consciousness. That, he most definitely cannot do.(3) As Keith Ward wonders, "What is the point of being a materialist when we are not sure exactly what matter is?"(4)

Ward makes another excellent point against Dennett’s proposal: "Nobody can observe anyone else’s conscious states, and we cannot really be sure that anyone else has any conscious states at all."(5) Thus, to say that we can give consciousness to a machine because consciousness is purely mechanical, would be impossible to prove, since one cannot actually make claims about any consciousness other than one’s own. 

Furthermore, inherent within materialism is the flaw of starting with the perceived world and moving to the perceiver when determining what reality is. It would be silly for me to say, "The shirt I’m wearing is blue; thus, I am able to perceive the blueness of my shirt." The only reason I can speak of the color of my shirt is that I perceive it. In order to make judgments about the color of my shirt, I have to trust what I perceive (which, in this case, would be mistaken, because of what we have come to learn about our perception of color). Similarly, I think it is mistaken to start with the material world and say that our consciousness is merely a product of it. The only way we can observe the material world is through our consciousness, and we cannot actually prove that it actually exists beyond that conscious state.

For these reasons, I see materialism and Christian theism on a level playing field, because their respective claims about what is beyond consciousness require the same amount of faith. We Christian theists believe in a God who transcends our consciousness. Materialists believe that the material world we perceive makes up reality, and that nothing is beyond it. Can either of these be proven? No. I propose, then, a question: Which belief system is more worthy of our faith? I contend that materialism is bankrupt in addressing this question, and that Christian theism is much more sufficient. 

I have shown that in order to be a materialist, one must accept the world that one perceives as reliable—as truly real. Furthermore, one must believe that nothing is beyond one’s consciousness. These actions, whether materialists like it or not, are actions of faith. By taking these steps, they trust their perceived reality and that nothing goes beyond it—and they do so without any proof. This is faith. But why should we have such faith? Why is it reasonable to believe that there is nothing beyond the reality that we observe? Not only does it lack reason, but it is counter-intuitive. We naturally reach beyond our perceived reality. Why should we believe that there is nothing beyond what we perceive when we have an inherent inclination to try and transcend our perception? As Norman Geisler and Winfried Corduan state, "humans are incurably religious . . . by nature a person has an irresistible urge to transcend himself."(6)

This is not the only area in which materialism is counter-intuitive. We experience free will, love, morality, emotion, etc. In materialism, all of these are reduced to nature at work. They are illusions. I find this claim to be ridiculous. Because our subjective consciousness is how we experience reality,(7) we shouldn’t make claims about reality that run completely counter to how we experience it. As Lesslie Newbigin says of free will, "All arguments designed to show that free will is an illusion break down into absurdity . . . [for nothing should be accepted] which simply denies our daily experience."(8) Ward also finds it strange that materialism would accept a belief system that "ignores the all-pervading evidence of personal experience."(9)

Can we honestly say that the choices we will to make, the people we love, the love we receive, the morals we cannot help but adhere to, and the emotions we feel, are all the mere work of nature? We’re just pawns in the game of evolution? Not only does this leave life bereft of meaning, it destroys everything we experience to be true. Charles Pearce once said, “A belief that can’t make any difference on how you act when acting counts is a belief that is devoid of meaning.(10) Materialism is meaningless because it does not ring true in our experience, and it has nothing to contribute to our lives practically.

Continue to part 2 here

Notes:
(1) Steve Wilkens and Mark L. Sanford, "Scientific Naturalism," in Hidden Worldviews (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 100.
(2) Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained (New York: Back Bay Books, 1991).
(3) Dennett (ibid., 455) asks, "why should consciousness be the only thing that can’t be explained?" The answer to this is simply because we cannot go beyond our consciousness to observe and explain it. Any ‘explanation’ would require faith, because we cannot know if whatever explanation we ascribe to it is actually true.
(4) Keith Ward, Why There Almost Certainly Is a God (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2008), 15.
(5) Ibid., 16.
(6) Norman Geisler and Winfried Corduan, quoted in Kenneth Boa and Robert Bowman, Faith Has Its Reasons, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 86.
(7) So, Descartes: “I next considered attentively what I was; and I saw that while I could pretend that I had no body, that there was no world, and no place for me to be in, I could not pretend that I was not; on the contrary, from the mere fact that I thought of doubting the truth of other things it evidently and certainly followed that I existed.” Quoted in Dennett, 30.
(8) Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1989), 69.
(9) Keith Ward, More than Matter? (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2011), 133.
(10) Charles Pearce, quoted by Gregory A. Boyd, "The History and Hope of Open Theism" (lecture, Open Theology & the Church conference, St. Paul, MN, April 4, 2013). This was probably a paraphrase.

Reflections on Coming Out and Walking Away from Christianity

My friend Cory recently came out to his friends and family, something I'm ashamed to say I did not see coming. With this, he announced that he no longer considers himself a Christian, which is something I did see coming. When I asked people recently what makes them doubt Christianity, Cory sent me this, which is posted here with his permission. Cory is a very dear friend of mine, and I am glad I know him a little better now. What follows are his reflections after honestly wrestling with Christianity and with his sexual orientation. His words offer something to all of us.
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Let me begin by clarifying the subjectivity of what’s to follow. It seems silly to have to clarify such a thing because the only way we can know and experience anything is subjectively, but I know some of the things I am going to say may sound like semi-sweeping claims that will definitely ruffle some feathers. Therefore, I want you to understand that I am speaking from what I have seen, heard, and experienced up to this point in my life. The fact that you may disagree with some opinions is your right and subjective circumstance, but the fact that you cannot relate (or refuse to) does not make things any less real or important. That being said, here we go.

My life growing up in the church has never been marked by any drastic events or circumstances like some stories you’ve heard. My parents have never wanted anything but the best for me and raised me in the best way they knew possible, and I am deeply grateful for everything they taught me and it is ultimately because of them that I value many of the things I do today. I had a great group of friends and leaders at my church. I also had the privilege of being part of what you might call the “in” crowd of kids whose families I liked to compare to “dynasties” within our church. Suffice to say, most everyone knew me or knew my last name. I played in the high school worship band for 3 years, went to camps, was a leader at camps, and went on one mission trip. I was definitely your typical church kid.

Of course, I had my ups and downs faith-wise during high school, and I went to Mars Hill Church (lead by the notorious Mark Driscoll) for a little over 3 years as well. The music there was (and still is) really good and there’s no denying Driscoll’s oratory talent. Although I never got actively involved at MH, I eagerly attended every Sunday and greatly enjoyed what I understood as strong, unswerving, Biblical teaching. Transitioning into college and still coming out of a sort of religious stupor of not going to church, I decided to leave church out altogether during my freshmen year. I dabbled in partying and the like and generally enjoyed meeting new people and learning new things. However, I chose to start attending church again sophomore year, this time a very small one made up of young couples and college students. The church also happened to be part of the church planting network started by Mars Hill, so the teaching and atmosphere felt very much the same except 1/50 of the size. I began leading worship again and attending weekly small group meetings and found myself back in full church-swing.

But towards the end of sophomore year, I had a sudden, startling realization from reading Rob Bell’s book Love Wins. The controversial theology in his book aside, the thing that got to me was the extreme lack of questioning in the church I was attending and my experience with Christianity in general. Bell’s book, more than anything else, suggests the simple of question of “how do you know?” So many ideas such as inerrancy, predestination, truth, faith, etc, were all taken at face value, and I never met someone at this church or Mars Hill who was willing to ask basic, obvious questions. The real deal breaker for me was the Calvinism, specifically predestination, present in my church and Mars Hill. This piece would be oh so much longer if I wanted to go down the long and twisted path of my deep seated (I’ll admit) hatred and loathing for such doctrine openly espoused by those such as Driscoll and John Piper.

Ultimately though, I had a major problem with what Lutheran theologian and sociologist Peter Berger calls a “lack of epistemological modesty.” For those of you who don’t know, epistemology is the study of knowledge. Basically, how do we know what we know? Christians claim they know from the Bible, but knowing in itself has never been certain. What I came to realize is that what most Christians mean by “I believe” isn’t really a belief at all. It’s a truth claim, which in philosophical and scientific terms, is extremely bold and tricky. I would say that claiming to know the truth itself is impossible in this reality, but that’s a whole other philosophical conversation. The root of the issue for me lies in how the majority of the Christians that I know treat the Bible and so many other doctrines, theologies, morals, etc, as if there is no denying their authenticity.

In reality, as I said at the beginning, subjectivity is at the heart of all these matters. You may believe that objective truth exists, but your belief that it exists and what exactly it is is subjective. The fact that so many different groups within Christianity alone drastically differ in so many ways is proof of the subjectivity that bind people to certain groups and ideologies over others. Within your own group, it’s easy to look out from the inside and wonder how others can’t recognize their faults. I am as guilty of this as the next Christian too. As a result, it’s easy for the organized church and its teachings to treat the world as objective and ignore the literal billions of unique lives out there. It’s easy to view the world over as just masses of sinners needing salvation, but when you start to look at each individual, there is so much history. Good, bad, hurt, tragedy, all kinds of shit. With an objective world-view, you lose the individual, and everything becomes a mass of symbolism and ideology rather than human beings who deserve personal, careful attention.

All these things have been especially true for me. All through high school, I knew in the back of my mind that I was gay. I recognized I had this attraction, but refused to acknowledge or think about it. There was just no way in hell it would work for me to take it seriously or come out when I was still at my old church, a part of an all-guys small group, leading worship, and going to Mars Hill. Of course, back then I still thought the whole thing was wrong, a sin, etc. I almost thought maybe this was just some temporary thing that would go away eventually somehow. Going away to college and distancing myself from all of that made my orientation even more apparent to me, but I still chose to ignore it.

Finally, after graduating in June of 2013, I went home for a week and saw lots of old friends. Being around them and knowing I thought differently about so many things, religious and otherwise, made things so frustrating. With almost every friend I met up with, I wanted to just unload everything I thought now onto them. On top of that, I was becoming more and more uncomfortable basically living a lie any time the question of girlfriends and such was brought up. At the end of my stay at home, I almost told my parents then and there, but decided to wait. A couple weeks later I told my oldest brother first, and then from there I let each of my family members know. It was the most awkward thing I have ever done.

Thankfully, no one responded in anger, as is the case with many stories I’ve heard of people coming from Christian families. My parents were definitely shocked and saddened though. The main thing I want them and all my friends to understand is that I am still the same person. This doesn’t mean that I am going to become flamboyant all of a sudden. Heck, after telling one of my friends, he responded later by saying “you’re one of the manliest people I know!” This is just how I am, and I’m still no different.

Now many Christians, including many I grew up with, would respond to that by saying something along the lines of “but you don’t have to be that way” or “God can help you not live that lifestyle” or whatever. If I believed the same things, I could try to not live the “gay lifestyle” (whatever that means), but I’d like the Christians who’d say that to truly consider what that means. It’s easy for straight people to say it, but imagine if you weren’t allowed or encouraged to be with the kind of person you’re naturally attracted to? Is it possible for you to forget ideology for a moment and actually imagine what that would be like? If you wanted to be honest with this idea, you’d be single for the rest of your life and not be allowed something that so many other people gladly celebrate.

In all honesty, I think that is a bullshit answer to something that you don’t understand and will never be able to so don’t put on an air of acting like you understand and know that it’s hard, etc., because you don’t. I used to think that I was destined to be single before when I didn’t find myself attracted to women. I’m a naturally independent person, so this idea didn’t bother me too much at first. But now that I’ve accepted this part of me and am perfectly fine with it, I’m really interested in and excited at the prospect of having such a relationship with someone.

You can argue all day about whether or not people like me can be born this way or develop an orientation.  All I know is that this is how I am. You can say that “well I’m naturally prideful” or “jealous” or “vain” or whatever “and that’s my ‘struggle’ just as being attracted to men is yours,” and I will once again call bullshit. You have these categories and ideologies of right and wrong that you attempt to fit around everything, but carefully consider orientation with me for a second. While I realize that the theology of this idea has some grey area and is not the strict dichotomy that I create here, but I think it still lends greater perspective and complexity to the issue.

If God is the God of strict Calvinism and predestination (aka determining everything we do before we do it), then God predestined me to be gay (this is also assuming that people can be gay from birth in the first place which I realize some people still believe to be an impossibility, but that issue aside because I don’t think there’s even a remotely solid Biblical argument to support that in the first place). I didn’t have a choice in the matter and this is just how I am. Basically, I was screwed from the start. On the other hand, if God is not the God of predestination and does not necessarily control everything, then I am gay just because that’s what happened. God left it up to the random selection of biology, a mutated gene or whatever. But this idea is hardly any less troubling than the predestination option because I am left with the explanation of “welp, this is just how the cards were dealt, sorry!”

Either way, I am left in a Christian society dominated by the idea that homosexuality is wrong and not having a clear theological answer for how I ended up this way. I could try to deny this part of myself and live a life that others and their God think is right, but that would be forcing myself to believe in something (the Bible, doctrines, etc) that I have strong logical and philosophical problems with. It would be forcing myself to believe (putting aside the fact that I do not consider my orientation to be a “belief” or “choice”) that objective, ultimate truth is knowable in this world, and that is something I cannot do. Why? I’ll give you nearly 7 billion reasons why.

If there is one, most important thing that this whole coming out process has taught me it is that you do not know people as well as you think. No one knew that I was gay up until this point in my life, and that is a huge part of someone. It shouldn’t define anyone, never the less it means that many of my friends who find out are going to be shocked because they thought they knew me so well.  As a result, I now try to look at everyone I know as supremely unique individuals with complex histories and events that have made them who they are today, and that is all they know, all they can know. In the same way, I am only what I have experienced and my knowledge is limited to that. This does not mean that people can’t change or don’t need to change, far from it, but it does mean that we, as individuals, are extremely limited in our ability to make objective claims about anything.

Which brings me back around to my biggest problem with the churches I have attended up to this point in my life and the type of Christianity I have encountered, and that is a lack of epistemological modesty and humility. Church leaders like Driscoll and many others insist on the full-proof, Biblical, God-given authority of what they say and act like it is fact. Its historical accuracy aside, there is no way to know if the Bible is actually the word of God. There is no way to know so many things. You may say, “but that’s why you have to have faith!” Have faith? In what? That you’re right and everyone else is wrong? This sounds more like a way of ignoring all the things that could threaten what you currently believe and leave you feeling less sure than you’d prefer. (Granted, everyone, religious or not, chooses to think thousands of different ways about everything, and to do so requires varying levels of arrogance and ignorance.)

For me, I choose to be what you might call an agnostic (but it’s more complicated than that) and accept ambiguity and uncertainty, and not because I am afraid to commit to any particular belief or simply don’t want to, but because I value people too much. I want to respect and understand people too much to label them Christian, non-Christian, atheist, Muslim, gay, straight, whatever. As reality stands now and our ability to understand anything beyond it, others are the most real thing we can know. I still believe God exists, but as to how God thinks everything should be or what should not be, that is ultimately speculation. The person standing in front of you, however, is not speculation. They are real and their issues, interests, needs, joys, etc, are real and all deserve to be understood. I am real and deserve to be understood and not labeled as “gay,” “church drop-out,” or “non-believer.” That is the difference between being subjective and objective.

Words that Explode: More Quotes from Brueggemann's Theology of the Old Testament

"It is my judgment that complaint addressed to Yahweh can be understood as Israel's moment of 'omnipotence.' Further, it is my judgment that because Christian practice has denied people this dimension of piety, the church inclines to produce 'false selves' who cannot be honest before God and so must 'fake it' with God." (475)

"[E]verything about the future depends on the readiness of human agents to take venturesome action toward Yahweh." (487)

"An ideology of scarcity produces a competitiveness that issues in brutality, justifies policies of wars and aggression, authorizes an acute individualism, and provides endless anxiety about money, sexuality, physical fitness, beauty, work achievements, and finally mortality. It seems to me that, in the end, all of these anxieties are rooted in an ideology that resists a notion of limitless generosity and extravagant abundance." (559)

"Enlightenment rationality, in its popular, uncriticized form, teaches that with enough reason and resources, brokenness can be avoided. . . . In such ideology there are no genuinely broken people. . . . The church, so wrapped in the narrative of denial, tends to collude in this. . . . The outcome for the isolated failure is that there can be no healing, for there has not been enough candor to permit it." (560)

"[P]ower--political, economic, military--cannot survive or give prosperity or security, unless public power is administered according to the requirement of justice, justice being understand as attention to the well-being of all members of the community. In an alternative theory of public power . . . power can sustain itself willy-nilly, even if it practices endless self-aggrandizement and brutalizing self-indulgence. Moreover, those who come to power are, characteristically, convinced (a little at a time) that their own well-being is the key factor in the maintenance of general well-being, prosperity, and security." (615)

"Wisdom teaching is an ongoing, developing process. Therefore, to halt the process by refusing to consider new experience is not 'right,' for it misrepresents Yahweh and Yahweh's reality in the world." (687)

"[T]he Old Testament in the modern world is endlessly vexed by and tempted to historicity; that is, to 'what happened.' . . . It is my judgment that Enlightenment modes of history have almost nothing to do with Israel's sense of Yahweh." (714)

"[T]he Old Testament is powerfully polyphonic in its testimony. . . . Nothing about the theological claims of the Old Testament is obvious or one-dimensional. They remain remarkably open." (731)

"The motivation offered for Yahweh's actions in time of need are of various kinds, some of which are not congruent with 'innocent' Christian piety. That is, in addition to confessions of sin and statements of need and trust, Israel also seeks to motivate Yahweh to act by appealing to Yahweh's honor, vanity, and risk of shame (e.g., Num 14:13-16). I take it that the willingness of Israel to appeal to such risky motivations is a measure of the urgency of the petition. It is not possible or necessary to tone down such motivations to conform to a kind of 'pure faith,' for the Old Testament is not engage in 'pure faith,' and no amount of Christian romanticism can make it so. Israel is engaged in faith that must live honestly in the midst of an unfair and threatening world." (472)

Texts That Linger: Quotes from Brueggemann's Theology of the Old Testament

Brueggemann, Walter. Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997. $30.98. pp.v-777. ISBN 978-0-8006-3765-1. ★★★★☆

I just recently finished Walter Brueggemann's massive 750-page Theology of the Old Testament. While I would love to write a review of it, I wouldn't even know where to begin, and would not be able to recall all the thoughts I had over the course of reading it. Thus, I thought instead I would just post several quotes from the book that I found compelling and/or thought-provoking:

"Israel's speech about Yahweh is characteristcally situated historically. I intend only to rule out questions of positivistic history that seek to limit Israel's imaginative utterance about Yahweh to recoverable happenings. Stated another way, the history to be reckoned with in this project is emic, i.e., as accepted by the Israelite cast of characters, and not etic, i.e., the past recoverable by the reckonings of the rationality of modernity." (118)

"Yahweh is slow to anger ('rk 'ppym). The actual Hebrew idiom translates as "has long nostrils." The usage perhaps indicates that Yahweh's long nose permits divine rage and anger to cool off before they threaten Israel." (216)

Speaking of Hosea 2:2-23: "Yahweh's divorce (abandonment) of Yahweh's wife Israel was, so the poet asserts, due to Israel's fickleness as a spouse . . . [but then] the poet moves beyond divorce to contemplate remarriage, a move unthinkable in the old law of Moses." (223)

"Israel's characteristic adjectival vocabulary about Yahweh is completely lacking in terms that have dominated classical theology, such as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. This sharp contrast suggests that classical theology, insofar as it is dominated by such interpretive categories and such concerns, is engaged in issues that are not crucial for Israel's testimony about Yahweh and are in fact quite remote from Israel's primary utterance." (225)

"Yahweh goes through loss, anguish, rage, and humiliation." (254)

"The term passion [with regard to Yahweh] . . . refers to a propensity to suffer with and suffer for, to be in solidarity with Israel in its suffering, and by such solidarity to sustain a relationship that rightfully could be terminated." (299)

"One may suggest . . . that the move toward incarnation . . . is in some inchoate way already present in Yahweh's radical decision for covenantal solidarity with Israel and more radical decision toward pathos with Israel. . . . [W]hatever may be claimed for the radicality of God in the New Testament is already present in all its radicality in these Jewish witnesses to the character of Yahweh." (302)

"Israel as witness knows that if Yahweh is not endlessly criticized and subverted, Yahweh will also become an absolute, absolutizing idol." (332)

"[I]f we are to identify what is most characteristic and most distinctive in the life and vocation of this partner of Yahweh, it is the remarkable equation of love of God with love of neighbor." (424)

"The human person, like Israel, is invited, expected, and insistently urged to engage in a genuine interaction [with Yahweh] that is variously self-asserting and self-abandoning, yielding and initiative-taking." (458)

"[S]o-called conservatives tend to take careful account of the most rigorous claims of the Bible concerning sexuality, and are indifferent to what the Bible says about economics. Mutatis mutandis, so-called liberals relish what the Bible says in demanding ways about economics, but tread lightly around what the Bible says about sexuality." (458)

Yahweh "in mutality invites challenge. The high classical tradition of Christian interpretation has not paid sufficient attention to this . . . aspect of Yahweh's fidelity, which issues in pathos and vulnerability to the human partner." (459)

"[T]he wisdom traditions make clear that obedience is not simply slavish, fearful conformity to rules and laws. Thus wisdom is a guard against legalism. Obedience, according to the traditions of wisdom, entails the imaginative capacity to take positive initiatives for the enhancement of creation." (466)