Are you religious?

This is why the institutional Church is so important. The Church provides a centuries long tradition to interpret the texts in various ways. Without it, you get a continual splintering of churches to the point where each person essentially becomes their own 'church'. Yet, you can not have a churchless Christianity. Without an institutional and cultural structure, Christianity will continue to erode.

 

Church seems to be an ongoing process of erosion, reformation, and counter reformation.
We need church, but church needs constant development and restoration as it avoids stagnation and contamination.
The biblical basis for institutional church seems to be particularly weak. I don't know which denomination you consider to be the church, but, whichever it might be, it will be far more structured and far less dynamic than what we read in scripture.

 

Yes, I find it quite ridiculous how people look for the early church in scripture, and then try to conform their own to that. They seem to lack all idea of organic growth and Providence in history [anachronism?]. Because of all the intractable problems facing a modern 'church', I converted from some sub-sect of Protestantism to the Catholic Church years ago.

 

I suppose I'm an agnostic. I don't know how to choose between the many religions and the many interpretations and sects within each religion. I find some religions implausible because of the 'problem of evil' but that still leaves a multitude of conceptions of God/Gods and spirituality. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

I solved that one in my under graduate years.

I gather it's a philosophical problem, an inconsistent triad:

1] God is all powerful
2] God is omnibenevolent/ all good
3] There is evil in the world

So it's thought they can't all be true. If God is all powerful and all good, how could evil exist? And if evil exists, how could God be all powerful and all good?

The way out of the perceived difficulty is to move it from philosophy to theology; first ask the atheist philosopher how he recognizes a moral reality such as evil in the world... or even where does this conception of an all good God come from. They are then quick to say it is an incoherency within the theist's position itself. And the theist then has a fuller recourse to theology.... as the statements of the triad themselves are derived from theology. It's then a question of whether the biblical account in it's entirety is coherent [note, not rationally provable]. And this simply becomes a matter of faith; your reason then either assents to belief or doesn't [why one person believes and another doesn't is a mystery].

The essential factor in side-stepping the three pronged argument is the account of the fall; there was once a perfect creation, which we still have an idea/ memory of in the ideal, but it fell due to free will etc.

 

If you solved it, why didn't you publish?

I am questioning more the basis for the triad, or tetrad, if you add omniscient. There is no question that evil exists, but there are issues with the other postulates. Through the O. T., most of the repenting is done by God. I cannot conceive of an omnibenevolent, omniscient, all-powerful God ever needing to repent. From the introduction to the flood story on God repents. He repents of what he has done and of what he has said he would do. Something wasn't right.
Our point of view may be limited and man/self centered. I have spent some time trying to fathom the worldview around Ephesians 3:10.

 

The church will by definition be dynamic since it consists of all believers everywhere, and people need to adapt to their circumstances. The problem with large church institutions is that they're resistant to reform when it can sometimes be necessary, while the problem with small organizations is that they can be too adapted to the world.

Although I don't personally identify as one, I go to a southern baptist church, a denomination founded on the idea that the bible condones southern slavery. Institutions can be good, but they can also become something ugly, dominated by opportunistic people who use their "church" for material enrichment.

Such institutions have done so much to drive people away from seeking redeeming faith in Christ.

There is value in the institutional church, but I think as individuals we have to rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us in understanding the scriptures and what it means to be the body of Christ.

 

Well, I am no great believer in academia, or the bureaucratization of thought. Not sure what you mean about a repentant God in the Old Testament. I'd say dig into the fathers of the Church for your theology. The older the better. Mind you, St. Augustine has to be preferable to St. Jerome. Anything after Luther is a waste of time. You see the beginning of German/ modern egoism there.

 

Genesis 6:5-6
5 And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And it repented Jehovah that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. (ASV)

5 When the Lord saw how great the wickedness of human beings was on earth, and how every desire that their heart conceived was always nothing but evil. 6 the Lord regretted making human beings on the earth, and his heart was grieved. (NABrev)

It sounds like the creator was not satisfied with what he had done in creating man. To me it does not support God's all good, all powerful, & all knowing qualities, but there is no question of the evil.

 

Thanks, @Buzz Lightyear.

You say that the "the statements of the triad themselves are derived from theology", but the earliest formulation of the problem of evil is attributed to Epicurus who was an ethical hedonist and would presumably have had no knowledge of Jewish theology.

One of my issues with 'the fall' thing is that surely omniscient God would have known he was creating beings who would fail his test. If omnipresence means being everywhere in time as well as in space then you'd have the absurd situation where he was creating Adam and Eve and watching them betray him at the same time!

 

Mellow

It get's difficult when one starts questioning the will/ designs of God. We're so limited in our understanding/ capabilities. Surely, God did know the human race would be wicked before he created us, nevertheless we were created. In Ephesians 1 Paul tells the believers in Ephesus and (I think) all believers that we were chosen before the creation of the universe to be for the praise of His glory.

Not only did God know about the fall, he also knew about His chosen who would be redeemed and live to glorify Him. This is God's will, it is what is pleasing to Him and I give thanks for it.

 

Sure, the Supreme Being, the First Cause, the God of the philosophers, is there in the philosophy of Aristotle. If I remember correctly, Epicurus dissolves the 'problem of evil'. It is not so much an ontological reality, but a common perception that philosophy can see through. So, for example, death is no real evil as no-one can experience it; death by its very definition is non-being, so why bother worrying yourself. It's actually a begging of the question by defining your own terms.

But I like Epicurus as an anti-dote to the rationalism of the Stoics. He is no crass hedonist, but re-emphasizes the higher pleasure we take in aesthetic experience. Out of his philosophy comes an awareness of the importance that art plays in our life if we are to be happy. Marius the Epicurean, by Walter Pater, is a must read for a good understanding of both Epicureanism and the role art plays in both individual psychology and collective religion.

I think this goes to show how language is always an opaque mechanism for the communication of meaning. This is why you always had exegesis, pre-Reformation, which would discriminate between literal, allegorical and figurative interpretations of a text. Without it, you get all the horrors of a Calvinist theology [and fanaticism] where whole populations are pre-destined/ predetermined to salvation or damnation… through no real choice of their own.

We need to do an archaeology on ourselves; how did we get to this point where we demand to grasp literally the meaning of the cosmos? It’s not as if some winged creature could suddenly take us to a mountain top for a God’s eye view right*.

Though the giants of philosophy, such as Aristotle and Kant, did attain a height, as far as humanly possible, they both saw the limitations. All philosophy subsequent to them is in reality a series of lower foothills, lacking the horizoned perspective, with unsophisticated science well and truly back in the cave.

The problem is our desire [and this places the will as the central phenomenon and not reason] for rational explanation, and that explanation along the lines of causation. Ironically, I wonder if this begins in the high middle ages, with Aquinas and his five arguments. At best it shows philosophy as a double-edged sword; at worst, it initiates a process whereby faith slowly erodes before a growing desire for explanation and proof. What this in effect does is narrows our consciousness, or should I say widens it to a horizontal plain.

It's aesthetic awareness, of both language and experience, which constrains the desire to Know. It's recognized as an autonomous realm in both Aristotle and Kant, and accordingly is enabled to interrogate the Truth claims of all discursive reason, hypothesis, or theory. It punctures pure reason's pretensions to seriousness. It seems to always have a vertical component to it, in contrast to rational explanation, which places experience beneath us. When all forms of meaning are identified with this mode of thinking, that is, with pure rationality and analysis devoid of rational imagination, then the aesthetic is lost. Why is that a tragedy? Because it is primarily through aesthetic experience, where the spirit is somehow quickened, that one becomes aware of a religious dimension. It's when an existential subjective self is awakened that a spiritual journey begins. And when one recognized the authority, autonomy, and primacy of the aesthetic realm, one then naturally asked how such things as moral, artistic, and intellectual experiences are possible. This leads naturally on to belief in some divinity.


*Or is it; the Libido Dominandi of St. Augustine

 

But to get back on course, why the existence of evil? As both a layman and a believer, of more literary bent than philosophical, it does not concern me too much. It was actually, most probably, the awareness of the existence of evil that first propelled me toward thinking of the cosmos in moral terms, and then seeing some form of resolution in the biblical account.

When evil became a topic for theological analysis, I thought that being made in the image of God has a lot to do with an 'explanation'. St. Augustine would be my go to 'theologian' here who writes much about free will. In a sense we are all 'gods' capable of being our own first causes to a certain extent [the self-determination of Aristotle]. We are created free BEINGS to love, to choose, to enter into dialogue and relationship. In my mind this makes God even more powerful... that He could create some creature like that, not just some play thing. But who can know the mind of God? But I am sure, or believe, He is a supreme intelligence.

 

Thanks for the thoughtful answers, @Buzz Lightyear.

The evidential problem of evil troubles me the most. Does the Fall and the necessity for free will really account for such suffering in people and animals (especially children)? I'll use some quotes by Darwin and Dawkins (though I'm not a 'new atheist') for examples:

Dawkins:

One answer is that 'lower animals' don't suffer as much as we think because they lack the neurological complexity. I certainly hope this is the case. A child with a painful terminal illness suffering through a short life seems harder to explain. Maybe it is all for the greater good though.

 

We may think life is about the pursuit of happiness because we are running away from suffering.....

Undoubtedly, life is suffering, and from a moral perspective is often outright unnecessary and evil.

Let's be generous and allow the naturalists, materialists, and physicalists their moral sentiments. After all, they are just as human as the rest of us.

So we all recognize the reality of suffering. Rather than being a difficulty for religion, this was usually the foundation from which it all rose. It's a tad odd that this is perceived today to be the weak point, for traditional theology has never had a problem with it. The reason being is it had recourse to the idea of the fall; there was perfection, and then there was the fall. Suffering and evil entered the world due to free will [and there is a notion that will make materialists squirm in turn]. Reality is conceived here along the lines of a drama, and a drama where everyone plays a role. This couldn't be further from the idea of the world as a natural machine. Actually, I think the problem of evil was felt most keenly by the Deists, where Deism developed alongside Rationalism. Deists considered God to have been the watchmaker, or the like, and left the world, uninterrupted, to its own devices. This is the picture that Dawkins seems to have in mind in mentioning 'design'.

So what it comes down to is not so much the 'objective' arguments, but the way in which we seek to interpret the world in the first place; do you see a machine, or do you see a drama? those that would put the emphasis on the first person experience of freedom and subjectivity, such as the existentialists, tend toward seeing the phenomena of dramatic choice and responsibility as central... the old idea of virtue and self-determination decked out in new clothes. Those that put the emphasis on objectivity, and who already have a rationalist frame of mind, are going to see things differently. This is why I mentioned 'incommensurability' in a previous post. I think you might be interested in reading Thomas Kuhn's 'Structure of Scientific revolutions' [this is applicable to cosmology as well as scientific theory... they are competing views of reality]. It's a well respected book which brings a bit of philosophy to bear on science, and provides an understanding of the way in which we tend to think within 'paradigms'. It is by the paradigm ingrained in our habitual thought that we interpret the world.

 

From the philosophical, ideal, and theological perspective, life is a holocaust... there is something quite abnormal about it; we are all sailing on a sea to slide from the edge of existence at some point.

 

Buzz, you're in a different league than me. Thanks for taking the time to write your posts, I find them very refreshing. I have a relatively narrow, bible based view, and I enjoy how you frame your ideas in a much broader, philosophical picture. Let me ask you - Is this belief in the incompatibility of God and suffering a result of the enlightenment/ scientific revolution? Is that when the western world switched from drama to machine?

If I follow you -

If you see the world as a machine - then a good engineer would design the machine to hum along silently and efficiently with no dripping oil or blown bearings. Since the machine that is the world grinds along leaking blood and blowing life, it must not have had a designer, and if it did, they must have been a really poor engineer, certainly not worthy of praise or worship.

If you see the world as a drama - then what is a drama without some violence and tragedy? The best stories have plot twists, suffering, the death of a beloved character. Whoever created the drama of this world must be the greatest playwright of all, especially if you believe the gospel.

 

Yes, that is well summarized. It's the difference between an artistic point of view and a scientific point of view. The scientific point of view tends to dehumanize the world and ourselves to the point of machinery. If we want to rediscover our humanity we need to go to the humanities.

And all of this need not be anti-reason, but just against a certain kind of stripped down and austere reason that developed at a certain time in history, and which still keeps the mass of people disciplined to think a certain way.... machinery again. It is hardly a criticism against the creator of a divine tragi-comedy that the world is not a perfect machine. Thank God it is not!

 

I went to church for a good part of my childhood. My mom is a strong believer yet never forced anything on me. Even as a child, she made it clear that things like baptism and communion were things that you did when you felt you were ready. Maybe it has something to do with that she was forced to get baptised as a child. She didn't know what it was, what was going on, just that she was going to do it and not to argue. She went hard atheist for a time, then eventually returned to the church and got baptised again, legitimately this time in her eyes.

The only time I was forced to take the bread and water was when I was with an unpleasant aunt who said, "take it!" when I tried to refuse.

I've also been to various churches, each different in their approach. From a strict Pentecostal, to Catholic with their various rituals, a little Mormon, more recently a non denominational that puts more focus on the person and less on doctrine. I've only been there twice, and they caught me off guard each time. Don't worry about the rest of the Bible until you understand who Jesus was? Whaaat? He did take the time to explain that there were millions of Christians well before the Bible was compiled.

This seems to sort of match what I've heard about the direction that young Christians are going, and that's to focus on being a follower of Christ than the religion itself.

 

It is human nature that we are disposed to sin. Of course the sinner himself is to blame for his sins, not human nature. Now, I can't speak for all religions, but no one can honestly blame the religion to which I belong when its members do bad things. We often fail to live up to its moral teachings, and therefore we sin, not because of our religion, but in spite of it.

Compared to eternity, any lifetime of suffering is infinitesimal. Furthermore, although suffering is a consequence of sin, and therefore evil, it is meritorious for one to suffer patiently in reparation for sin. It is likely that a child with a painful terminal illness has less difficulty leading a holy life than a healthy, gifted person.

If one is baptized validly (including young children by the consent of their parents), then no subsequent baptisms are legitimate. One can only be baptized once. If parents willfully neglect to baptize their children soon after birth, then they neglect to care for the souls of their children. That would be a grave fault, wouldn't it?

Wouldn't you agree that being a follower of Christ entails doing as he asks and following his teachings? He established a teaching church, and commanded all people to hear it.