#3 The spin on truth

02 Friday Jan 2009

Posted by in God, Religion, Theology

≈ 8 Comments

dreamstime_6640001Whatever our opinion about God, we all have one.  And that opinion rings true to us (even if we’re willing to revisit it, test it, adjust it, etc.).  If we only half-believed our opinion (is that even possible?), then our inner conviction would never rise above the level of platitude.  We adopt, or retain, the position that we find personally satisfying.  

Some theological views about God are:

1.   God exists

2.   God does not exist (dogmatic atheism)

3.   God might exist but whether God exists or not doesn’t impact life (practical atheism)

4.   Many gods exist

5.   There’s a good power in the universe and everything’s going to turn out okay

6.  There’s a cranky power in the universe and everything’s going to turn out badly (just kidding)

7.   God has never become incarnate

8.   Jesus is God incarnate

9.   Krishna is god incarnate

10.  To talk to God, I must face Mecca

11.  To talk to God, I must face the Wailing Wall

Each of these statements is a claim about truth.  Even uncertainty is a truth claim; we’ve decided that uncertainty is the truth.  Because we usually have several opinions about God, it’s fair to ask ourselves whether our claims make sense as a whole (are they coherent), whether they fit our everyday experience, and whether they are highly probable or less so.  

Most importantly, we’ll want to ask whether our opinions provoke and inspire us to live morally responsive and responsible lives.  We’ll also want to ask whether our opinions provoke and inspire us to help others flourish too.

#2 God: the mutilated word of appeal

28 Sunday Dec 2008

Posted by in God, Philosophy, Religion, Theology

≈ 3 Comments

 

dreamstime_63224261Do we administer CPR to God or leave God for dead?  Even after the Holocaust, the Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber, refused to turn his back on God and walk (or run) away.  Why not?  He explained his thinking in his book, Eclipse of God:

“[‘God’] is the most heavy-laden of all human words.  None has become so soiled, so mutilated. 

Just for this reason I may not abandon it. 

Generations of men have laid the burden of their anxious lives upon this word and weighed it to the ground; it lies in the dust and bears their whole burden.  The races of man with their religious factions have torn the word to pieces; they have killed for it and died for it, and it bears their fingermarks and their blood. 

Where might I find a word like it to describe the highest! 

If I took the purest, most sparkling concept…I could not capture the presence of Him whom the generations of men have honoured and degraded with their awesome living and dying.  I do indeed mean Him whom the hell-tormented and heaven-storming generations of men mean.  Certainly, they draw caricatures and write ‘God’ underneath; they murder one another and say ‘in God’s name’…  

And just for this reason is not the word ‘God,’ the word of appeal, the word which has become a name, consecrated in all human tongues for all times? 

We must esteem those who interdict it because they rebel against the injustice and wrong which are so readily referred to ‘God’ for authorization.  But we may not give it up… 

We cannot cleanse the word ‘God’ and we cannot make it whole; but, defiled and mutilated as it is, we can raise it from the ground and set it over an hour of great care.”

– Martin Buber, Eclipse of God (London:  Gollancz, 1953), 17-18.

#1 Skeptical? Some bare facts about theology

25 Thursday Dec 2008

Posted by in God, Religion, Spirituality, Theology

≈ 1 Comment

Skeptical young man

 

Here’s a test.  Have you asked yourself any of these questions:  What is my purpose in life?  What counts as a good life?  Do I (fill in your name here) matter?  Do I have a soul?  What is a soul?  Why is there so much suffering in the world?  Why have I suffered so much?  To whom am I speaking when, filled with gratitude, I find myself whispering “thank you, thank you”?  Where can I find comfort when I can’t take another piece of bad news?  What exactly IS my relationship to the divine?  Does that relationship entail any special responsibility on my part?  What are my moral principles and what am I willing to sacrifice to live by them?  Why should I be moral, why should I even be kind?  How can I love my neighbor—what exactly does that mean in practical terms?  What can I know of God?  

Okay, so you’ve got the picture.  Some of these questions could be considered philosophical because they’re asking basic questions about life.  Still, if you’ve read this far, then the God-dimension, or the vertical dimension, enters (or sneaks) into your questions and into your in-progress answers. 

Although you may not have known it, you’ve been theologians all along.  If you’re a dogmatic atheist and you discount the idea of God altogether, then you might consider yourself a philosopher, in the contemporary sense of philosopher anyway.  Because in the ancient world, philosophers like Plato and Plotinus considered ‘doing’ theology a key part of their work.  The idea of God was at the core of their musings—Plato called God, ‘the Good,’ and Plotinus called God, ‘the One.’  Now, while you may be theologians without knowing it, ‘doing’ theology means being intentional about asking questions like the ones above, and intentional about looking for thoughtful, rational answers. 

‘Doing’ theology is a kind of disciplined inquiry.  And that’s what this blog is all about.