In American lit, we've been talking about the early interactions between Europe and America, and I've always found it interesting that Columbus bumped into our continent accidentally when he was looking for something else. He was trying to get to spices and silk in China, and his theory of going around the earth was sound -- except for the obstructing landmass.
I think we often do that same thing. We have some goals in mind and some good theories -- even brilliance and courage, on occasion. But things work out completely and disorientingly different from what we intended, because the earth (or life, or God, as the case may be) is bigger than we thought. And the continents that come between us and our goals can be wonderful, if we accept and use them for what they are and snap out of the idea that they're a shortcut to what we wanted in the first place.
(This thought may eventually try to become articulate and profound and turn into a poem, or it may accept its humble status as a cheesy devo blog.)
Friday, August 31, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
When Theological Arguments Aren't
I've noticed recently that supposedly theological arguments are often really more based in aesthetics or mental comfort than in theology. People don't connect on the issue because they really disagree about a framework of aesthetics or mental comfort rather than about things derivable from the tangible evidence.
For example, responses to the question, "Does God cause suffering or just allow it?" are based on the concepts of God seen in each option and how mentally comfortable or irksome those concepts are to people. Most people I know want to say God allows suffering but doesn't cause it, and (I think) this is because they can't stand the idea of God as some kind of sadist or experimenter poking at humanity, even if it's for our own good. But other people say God causes whatever happens, (I think) because they want the reassurance that suffering, coming from God, is good and is under control, not just something random that happens while God stands there and declines to intervene. The groups both want to see God as good, but they have different aesthetic (that's not quite the right term, but it'll do) frameworks, and so they end up in very passionate opposition, both trying to defend the goodness of God from repulsive dishonor (as they see it). The first group of people will promptly direct us to the book of Job, where God allows Satan to cause Job suffering. The second group will also go to Job and quote, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Elsewhere in scripture too, there's evidence for both takes on the issue -- but people are selective and dogmatic because they're violently repelled by some images of God. (That was a long example; I hope it made the intended concept clear and wasn't just distracting in itself.)
But very often, people's supposedly theological arguments really get their bitterness and immobility from underlying problems of aesthetics or mental comfort rather than from any evidence that surfaces in the discussion. I was reading a little from John Calvin recently for a class, and he thinks that believing predestination allows people to appreciate God's undeserved bounty much better; he gets a more satisfying God image from predestination. Other people, of course, think the God image you get from Calvinistic predestination is disgusting. But presumably, Calvin doesn't get the same image of God from his views as those of us who react indignantly.
(Any alarmed modernists still with me should take a deep breath here and try not to panic. I'm not saying it's all subjective and all views are equally valid. I do believe that many of the issues are real issues, and it's possible to be wrong on them, and the objective evidence matters. But I am saying that there's a lot below the surface that we usually don't address, and what is subjective is not therefore irrelevant.)
So the main point is, we could improve communication if we better addressed the underlying aesthetic frameworks to theological questions. Often, we get an image that's repellent to us, and we say "Eww" (or perhaps some expression that sounds more like a mature indignation than that but signifies the same thing) and then try to find evidence for our own position under the impression that we know the other one is wrong, because God isn't icky like that. But I think it would be better if we took more time to understand other people's aesthetic frameworks so that we could approach the evidence more cooperatively and with less emotional volatility. And if the aesthetic framework is what's flawed, we could try to reason about that directly instead of dragging theological issues down with it. This method sounds a lot harder than what we normally do, but I think the attempt would be worthwhile.
Thoughts?
For example, responses to the question, "Does God cause suffering or just allow it?" are based on the concepts of God seen in each option and how mentally comfortable or irksome those concepts are to people. Most people I know want to say God allows suffering but doesn't cause it, and (I think) this is because they can't stand the idea of God as some kind of sadist or experimenter poking at humanity, even if it's for our own good. But other people say God causes whatever happens, (I think) because they want the reassurance that suffering, coming from God, is good and is under control, not just something random that happens while God stands there and declines to intervene. The groups both want to see God as good, but they have different aesthetic (that's not quite the right term, but it'll do) frameworks, and so they end up in very passionate opposition, both trying to defend the goodness of God from repulsive dishonor (as they see it). The first group of people will promptly direct us to the book of Job, where God allows Satan to cause Job suffering. The second group will also go to Job and quote, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Elsewhere in scripture too, there's evidence for both takes on the issue -- but people are selective and dogmatic because they're violently repelled by some images of God. (That was a long example; I hope it made the intended concept clear and wasn't just distracting in itself.)
But very often, people's supposedly theological arguments really get their bitterness and immobility from underlying problems of aesthetics or mental comfort rather than from any evidence that surfaces in the discussion. I was reading a little from John Calvin recently for a class, and he thinks that believing predestination allows people to appreciate God's undeserved bounty much better; he gets a more satisfying God image from predestination. Other people, of course, think the God image you get from Calvinistic predestination is disgusting. But presumably, Calvin doesn't get the same image of God from his views as those of us who react indignantly.
(Any alarmed modernists still with me should take a deep breath here and try not to panic. I'm not saying it's all subjective and all views are equally valid. I do believe that many of the issues are real issues, and it's possible to be wrong on them, and the objective evidence matters. But I am saying that there's a lot below the surface that we usually don't address, and what is subjective is not therefore irrelevant.)
So the main point is, we could improve communication if we better addressed the underlying aesthetic frameworks to theological questions. Often, we get an image that's repellent to us, and we say "Eww" (or perhaps some expression that sounds more like a mature indignation than that but signifies the same thing) and then try to find evidence for our own position under the impression that we know the other one is wrong, because God isn't icky like that. But I think it would be better if we took more time to understand other people's aesthetic frameworks so that we could approach the evidence more cooperatively and with less emotional volatility. And if the aesthetic framework is what's flawed, we could try to reason about that directly instead of dragging theological issues down with it. This method sounds a lot harder than what we normally do, but I think the attempt would be worthwhile.
Thoughts?
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