I recently read a review by Chris Smart on the Solas blog of the book, Strange Rites, by Tara Isabella Burton, published by Public Affairs, New York 2020. My thoughts come third hand, but I found enough meat to chew on (hopefully) in the review to warrant some attention.
The author of the book is an American, though she establishes some objective distance through her Oxford education in the UK. Only about five percent (5%) of people in the UK attend church on Sundays, and the trend in the US is moving in that same direction.
Into the vacuum that is growing with nones in the US are rushing other objects of our religious impulses. This seems to be the focus of the book, analyzing the places religious impulses are taking modern Americans as they drift away from Christianity.
If Protestantism that has dominated the religious landscape in the US in the past is a religion of the printed book, the new spiritual movements in the US are “religions of the Internet”. That remark certainly doesn’t surprise me, though I had not thought of it that way.
The Internet is larger than life in our world. It has replaced encyclopedias and asking our parents (or even your doctors) for information. It eats up our spare time more completely than the television did in my youth and the radio did in my father’s youth.
The Internet is everywhere. It never leaves our sides. We turn to it feverishly at all hours of the day and night. We can’t wait to communicate with it, and we constantly check it for validation through its communication with us.
Chris Smart, summarizing Burton’s observations, describes our preoccupation with the Internet as a search for transcendence in which people are “looking to create meaning, purpose and community through new rituals”. Those “modern rituals” are exploited and perpetuated by big business.
Some of the largest big businesses are the purveyors of community and connectivity on the Internet. They help to lead people with the breadcrumbs of their own preferences to tribes that are personally tailored for them. Our new temples are the echo chambers of our own inclinations and the tribes to which they tend to lead.
In a pervious article, The Beginning of an “Unapologetic” Argument for God, I conceded that human beings cannot prove the existence of God as an absolute, objective certainty. Not because God may not exist, but because we are finite beings who have limitations.
Because we don’t know what we don’t know, we have have to take our most basic assumptions on faith. Basically, we all must reason from a point of faith. Whether our premise is a multiverse limited to space/time and matter or the existence of a transcendent creator God, we assert the starting premise on faith because we cannot prove it.
That is the very nature of an axiom. Axioms are propositions we regard as “self-evidently” true, but we can’t prove them.
Immanuel Kant famously demonstrated the dilemma we face on the existence of God by creating an airtight syllogism logically proving the existence of God. Then he turned around and created an airtight, syllogism logical proving there is no God. What was the difference?
The difference was the first premise, the axiom with which he started. Thus, the premise with which your logic starts will determine the outcome of a syllogism. Different starting premises yield different logical conclusions. The logic can be solid in both examples, but the difference in the starting premises leads to opposing conclusions.
This is the human condition, finite as we are: we have to take our starting premises on faith. We can test them logically and in other ways. We can eliminate starting premises that won’t stand up to logic or other forms of testing, but we cannot ultimately prove our starting premises.
When we have two syllogisms that stand up to logic and to other ways of testing them, and they still yield opposite conclusions, we are at a loss to reconcile them and to eliminate one or the other – except by faith.
We can’t hold them together, because they are diametrically opposed to each other. We cannot resolve which one is correct objectively because we do not have the facts we need, as finite beings, to determine which axioms comport with ultimate reality, and which do not.
This is the human dilemma on the existence of God. It requires us to choose a starting premise on faith. With that said, I am going to make a very “unapologetic” argument for the premise of God.
I really like apologetics. I find it interesting to think about, but apologetics has limited power as a tool to convince people to believe in God. It is not a magic bullet. There is no magic argument to prove the existence of God.
When I see article titles or social media posts that make claims of proving the existence of God, I cringe a little bit. It’s a promise we can’t deliver. We really shouldn’t “go there”. I feel that we should be more honest than that.
Of course, the “promise” depends on the definition of “prove”. The Oxford online dictionary defines the word, “prove”, as follows:
demonstrate the truth or existence of (something) by evidence or argument. (“The concept is difficult to prove.”)
demonstrate to be the specified thing by evidence or argument. (“Innocent until proven guilty.”)
If everyone accepted and applied these definitions, perhaps, we could find more common ground. A “proof” in the first sense is just evidence or argument that demonstrates the truth of the existence of something. Whether that proof actually, definitively and absolutely provides the truth or existence of that something, is another matter. A proof in this sense is still open to judgment whether it accomplished the goal.
A proof in the second sense is similar, and the example includes a standard of proof (one that we use in criminal proceedings). This example raises a key point: Without agreement on the standard of proof, the determination whether a proof is successful in proving that point is a moving target.
The success of any evidence or argument in proving a point depends on what standard of proof is applied. Two people may apply two very different standards of proof and, therefore, arrive at two very different conclusions on the determination whether the proof was successful.
Most of the arguments between theists and atheists gloss over and fail to recognize this fundamental issue. Not only do they apply different standards of proof, they make all kinds of different assumptions, and worse: they define their terms differently. It’s no wonder the debates and discussions produce so much disagreement. They are basically talking in foreign languages to each other.
Wikipedia defines “proof” as “sufficient evidence or a sufficient argument for the truth of a proposition.” What is “sufficient” evidence, though, depends on the standard of proof that is applied. Different standards of proof will yield different results.
For instance, we generally apply different standards of proof in the American legal system in different contexts. In civil cases, the applicable standard of proof is “more likely than not”, and in criminal proceedings, the applicable standard of proof is “beyond a reasonable doubt”.
Proving a case under the “more likely than not” standard is much easier than proving a case “beyond a reasonable doubt”. The higher standard (“beyond a reasonable doubt”) is designed for criminal cases with the purpose of causing “the system” to err on the side of finding a guilty person innocent (rather than erring on the side of convicting innocent people).
At least, that is the theory. People still disagree on the outcomes of criminal cases, and innocent people are sometimes found guilty, even when applying the much higher standard of proof. I am reminded of the axiom: to err is human.
These problems of proof are inevitable for finite beings. We don’t know what we don’t know, and we are always prone to “getting it wrong”. If we don’t take that limitation seriously, we become arrogant and prideful.
Therefore, I am reminded of the propriety of maintaining humility. Even if we are certain in our own minds of the truth of a matter, we should be mindful of the human tendency to get things wrong.
This is where faith comes in. Faith, in part, is an exercise in humility. Faith is the inevitable condition of being human, and that goes for faith in the truth that science reveals and faith in the truth that the Bible reveals. Let me explain.
The creator of the YouTube Channel, Science Uprising, does a good job with the production of Big Bang: Something from Nothing, both in the technical aspects of the video and its content. (Linked below in the body of this article) The mask is a nice, dramatic touch.
The mask has taken on a meaning of standing up to tyranny in countercultural circles, and that meaning is not lost in the video. Popular science promoters of the atheist stripe in recent years have been aggressive in trying to squelch the idea that faith and science can live together. This YouTuber is having none of it!
Indeed, the effort seems to have spurred on and inspired many believing scientists in recent years, like some of the people who appear in this video, pushing back against the New Atheist mantra. Not only do science and faith fit together like a hand in a glove; non-theism seems to be pulling at the fringes of credibility to walk back the determination that the universe had a beginning a finite time ago.
The so-called “Big Bang” or “singularity”, as Hawking called it, has proven problematic for the scientist who wants to remain a materialist. The implication of a Beginning from the fact that there was a beginning to matter, space, energy and time is a conclusion that Einstein didn’t want to face, though his theory of relativity suggested it.
He came around, and so have almost all scientists today, albeit reluctantly for many who thought that science buried God years ago. This is not to say that all scientists have come around to believe in God.
Hawking, who proved singularity mathematically, spent much of the rest of his life trying to avoid the inevitable conclusion that his math confirmed. Multiverses would be his answer, though they are no more provable by science than a creator.
Science hasn’t buried God. Science once was universally viewed as the study of the universe God created, and many scientists take that view, still, today. I know a number of atheists who became believers mainly through science. The dogma of the New Atheistm is turning brittle as time wears on.
These are just some of the things I think about as I view this short, but well done, video:
I spend a fair amount of time thinking about the Pharisees in Jesus’s day and who the Pharisees of our day might be. Jesus was pretty tough on them as a group. It seems that maybe we should pay attention.
They were religious leaders, of course. The Oxford online dictionary defines a Pharisee as “a member of an ancient Jewish sect, distinguished by strict observance of the traditional and written law, and commonly held to have pretensions to superior sanctity”. The word, Pharisee, has become synonymous with a self-righteous person or a hypocrite.
I think it’s easy to write them off as a particularly unenlightened, archaic clique of religious leaders who completely missed the boat when God became man and walked among them. I also think it’s dangerous for us to dismiss them so offhandedly.
Pharisees weren’t the only religious leaders in the First Century. The Sadducees were another “party” of religious leaders in that time. Like Democrats and Republicans today, the two groups were in conflict with each other over politics and theology. There were also Zealots and Essenes who were more on the fringes.
The Sadducees were more elite and upper class than the Pharisees. They were also more conservative, at least in the sense of recognizing only the written Torah, rejecting the “oral Torah” (along with the Prophets and the idea of resurrection of the dead).
The Pharisees were more trusted by common folks. While the Sadducees incorporated and settled into Greek culture and thought, the Pharisees opposed it, remaining more “pure”, emphasizing Mosaic Law alone.
The word, Pharisee, means “set apart, separated”. Though I am not aware of any Sadducees who followed Jesus, more than a few Pharisees were believers, including Nicodemus (John 3:2), Joseph of Arimathea (John 19:38), an unknown number of “those of the party of the Pharisees who believed” (Acts 15:5). Paul, of course, was also a Pharisee.
The Pharisees were the trusted religious leaders of the common people. They had the most interaction with Jesus, perhaps, because they interacted more with the common people than did the Sadducees. The Sadducees were more politically aligned with the Romans and enjoyed more privilege and position.
The Pharisees, as I have come to see them, are a lot like many of our religious leaders today. They were earnest in their effort to remain true to the Mosaic teachings, to honor God and to live lives devoted to God.
They were also misguided, of course. They missed the proverbial forest for the trees. God became man and walked among them, and most of them didn’t recognize Him. They clung too tightly to their ideas of who the Messiah would be and what he would be like – they clung too tightly to their doctrines – to recognize the Messiah when he showed up.
In this tendency to cling to traditional ideas, to be dogmatic about doctrine, to focus too much on particulars and, thereby, miss the big picture, I see possible parallels to the Christian world of today. I don’t claim to know exactly how that parallel applies, but I think we need to take seriously the idea that we have Pharisees among us (and have Pharisaic tendencies in all of us).
I think it’s dangerous to assume that we are not like the Pharisees today. The Pharisees are much more like us than we care to admit or consider. Most devout believers are more in danger of being a “Pharisee” than a heathen, for instance. If we are going to fall into error, it will likely be on the side of the Pharisees.
The Pharisees weren’t necessarily wrong (or weren’t all wrong) in their theology. It was more in the application. They focused on the letter of the Law, but they failed to understand its “spirit”. They focused more on how they appeared to others than how God saw them.
They knew their Scripture. They knew that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem and from the house of David, so they rejected Jesus because he appeared to be from Nazareth. They “knew” nothing good came from Nazareth (more of a cultural reality), but they failed to keep an open mind. If they had done a little research, they would have discovered that Jesus did come from David’s line and from Bethlehem.
Dogmatic thinking that “locks in” certain interpretations of Scripture and the expectations that grow out them is as much a danger for us today as it was for the Pharisees in the First Century.
The Pharisees were concerned about instructed people to behave in certain ways, and they were quick to denounce actions that were out of step. They tried hard to conform their own actions to those expectations. In doing this, however, they were focusing on outward appearances.
Jesus challenged them in their assumptions, their traditions, their dogmatic adherence to theology and doctrines they held, and in their practices:
“And the Lord said to him, ‘Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you. But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.'”
Luke 11:39-42 ESV
This reminds me of the faith and works tension that we wrestle with as modern Christians. We should know better than the First Century Pharisees did that we are not saved by our outward actions. We are not saved by our merit or our own efforts. We are saved by grace alone, which we perceive and embrace by faith.
Yet, we have the tension that faith without works is dead. A tree is known by its fruit. We also care deeply how other people perceive us. We have no less pressure to conform our actions to expectations than they did. How, then, should we live?
Navigating by Faith 