But God was not in the wind....

In my last post, I related that I had been reading and considering Western, primarily Christian, religion from the point of "the philosophers." I reviewed the classical "proofs" for the existence of God, the problem with thinking of a God who "exists" the question of "grace and freedom" and, most importantly in the case against theism, the "problem of evil." I also re-read the biblical book of Ecclesiastes and portions of the biblical book of Job. Although I cannot say that I "found the answer," in these readings, I was perhaps able to shape the questions in my mind a bit better, and I suppose that I can say that I am "better off" in an intellectual sense by this re-introduction to the philosophy of religion.

What seems most likely to me, however, is that a quest to find a "God of the Philosophers" looks to be one that will not conclusively satisfy. In greater and lesser forms, the philosophical discussion of religion has been going on now for some thousands of years, and yet, the "grand unified theory" has eluded us. In the general text that I read as the centerpiece of my recent study, the possibility of a "soft rationalist" approach that looked at the "whole case of evidence" was offered as a "reasonable" approach to the problem of religious philosophy. This "case" would be formed of many strands or types of evidence. It could include logical argument, consideration of history and historical precedent, scientific research, divine revelation and, perhaps most importantly for my thoughts today, the contribution of "religious experience."

To my present state, it seems that the "non-experiential" portions of the case for religion create only the possibility for "god" and "religion." They do not, however, in themselves constitute a conclusive case, but allow, perhaps, a cautious curiosity. The problem, to my mind, however, is that without some sort of "experience" that "illuminates" religious practice and adherence, it remains rather abstract in the sense that I would have to make a quasi-catechetical response such as "but what does this mean for me?" Furthermore, it would seem that the "arguments" that might be advanced from religious experience would be either a "cumulative" case based on the experiences of others that we know both historically and in the present or a "conclusive" experience that I myself have that is convincing/transformational, or perhaps some lesser amalgam of both.

While staring at my bookshelves, I noted that I still had a largely-unfinished copy of Thomas Merton's biography, The Seven Story Mountain. (I know, I should have finished it years ago.) As I succumbed to the "tolle lege" that this seemed to suggest to me and began to read, however, I immediately encountered some of the less-attractive aspects of Merton, such as his "anti-protestant" bias and his immediate recourse to such conceptions as the mystery of the "non-bloody sacrifice of the mass" as the pre-eminent exemplum of divine love. Clearly, having read some of the rest of Merton, I understand that his religious experience was intense and transformational. But does an experience that leads to so many "traditional" conclusions (that I cannot accept) really inform the search for me? How am I to judge a religious experience that occurs in a context of a "traditional" concept of Christianity, when it would seem that, if the traditional concept is untenable, how is it that the "experience" is so "consistent" with it? Somehow, it would seem that my "search" for evidence in the historical experience of others is going to continue to be problematic.

As I consider, however, the other possibility, the experience that I, myself, have, I wonder what sort of experience I would find "convincing" at this stage? If I have discounted the possibility of a theistic god who could perform miracles that would "invade" the world of "natural law" and create a "special exception" for some purpose, then even "if I saw someone rise from the dead," I would have to consider questioning it. Should such a thing truly happen, then would that force me to concede and return to the theistic camp? What would be my experience of religion, then? It would be perhaps, I would suppose, one of pragmatism. Something like, "Well, heck, all that Christian dogma and doctrine really is true. Doesn't it suck that God (I would have to re-capitalize) allows such human suffering? But he holds all the cards and makes the rules, so I had better just shut up and walk the walk like a good boy." If then, miracles are "out" for the time being, then what "experience" would really "convince" me? I have dealt enough with deluded and sick minds to understand the power of want that can create internal experiences and convictions that, from my external point of view, seem clearly erroneous or delusional, that I would mistrust the argument from "feeling" the presence of "god" in "my heart" or some such conception. Again, how could I know that it was not the product of just some wishful thinking on my part?

It would seem, at this point, that the "experience" would have to be something rather un-expected. Since I know the biblical story of the "but God was not in the wind/storm/etc" and the "still small voice," it does rather suggest that at least some people got their "experience" in a form that neither they nor others might have expected. It is hard, however, to "live today" in the "hope" that some such transformational or "convincing" experience may come my way. Should I be like the "wise virgins" who "keep their lamps trimmed" waiting for the bridegroom's appearance? What would be the consequences of a life oriented to "waiting" for this sort of experience? How does one behave in the meantime? Does one simply keep "dipping one's finger in the holy water" and hope that one will "end up believing?" Does is make more sense to adopt a thoroughly secular orientation and leave religion as a "possibly provable" theory that we simply at this point do not have enough evidence at this point to affirm or refute?

Such problems!

Jeffrey Shy
("winded" in Arizona)
Mesa, Arizona

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost-Reflection on the Pericopes

After a lovely week of vacation and then a very not-so-lovely week of family illness and then one more somewhat unpleasant week of "catching up" from both, I find that it has been more than a month since I last made a post. It has not, however, been a month without reflection. For the last several weeks, I have taken up an interest again in the philosophy of religion. I was fortunate enough to have kept the textbook from my college course and used that as a starting point. I wish that I could say that I was ready to make a profound post that was a great breakthrough, but I have found that philosophical reflection has its own rewards, and some posts will likely follow shortly.

For today, I am sitting here on Monday morning with some thoughts in my head after attending church yesterday morning. The first biblical reading was from the first and second chapters of the book of Wisdom. It was striking to me first that the portion selected has a significant lacune in the middle that "robsbed" the "godless" of their full argument. The argument, of course, stated in rather striking poetry was of the evanscence of life. "In time, our name will be forgotten, nobody will remember what we have done; our life will pass away like wisps of cloud, dissolving like the mist that the sun's rays drive away and that its heat dispels. For our days are the passing of a shadow, our end is without return, the seal is affixed and nobody comes back." Then comes the conclusion of, therefore, "... let us enjoy the good things of today." This is contrasted against the god-fearing righteous man who makes his purpose the keeping of god's commandments. The difference, "of course," is that he "knows the secret" in that he contends that there is a life after death and his reward comes then. It is also one of the few times in the bible that we read, prior to the new testament, about a concern for an "afterlife." It also moves the blame for death out of the hands of god and blames the devil as the author of evil: "For God created human beings to be immortal, he made them as an image of his own nature; Death came into the world only through the Devil's envy, as those who belong to him find to their cost."

The further fallacy in the argument is that enjoying the "good things of today" comes at the cost of contempt and intentional disregard for the needs of others. This may be a practical consequence of the employment of the "live for today" mentality of some, but it is not an inevitable or necessary one.

In a further interesting "jolt," the Wisdom text is paired with the "receive a little child" story from the gospels. As the text was interpreted in our sermon, the idea was not that children were wonderful and innocent, but that they were regarded at the time as somewhat less than other human beings. The message was that we needed to concentrate each day on taking care of the "least of these," and that the "least of these" were the poor, homeless, etc. Certainly, I cannot argue with that, but the final argument advanced bothered me a great deal more. There was a reference made to the "current disagreement" in the Anglican communion. For a person "not in the know" this is quite simply dealing finally and clearly with the issue of justice for gay and lesbian persons in the church. It has been finally "forced" on the conservatives through the American church's ordination of an openly gay bishop (as opposed to closeted ones of which there have been many). It also involves a rather extraordinary turn of events that it has provoked a "crisis of Anglican unity." Simply put, those who disagree in the American church are forming splinter churches and dioceses, and those who disagree in the larger Anglican community are trying to force the American church to repent or depart. (This problem has been building, not just with regard to gay/lesbian issues, for more than 20 years) This has, very unfairly, foisted the onus of the "disruption of Anglican union" onto the backs of gay and lesbian persons in the church. "You really don't want to destroy the Anglican communion do you? Of course we (liberals) agree with you, but is 'having it all our way' worth disrupting the Anglican communion over?" We might have just as well have asked the sourthern slaves of 19th century America the same question: "You don't really want to have the United States erupt into war over this do you? Wouldn't it be better to....."

Where I was getting with this, however, was the rather additional extraordinary argument that if we got down to the "real business" of taking care of "the least of these," these other troublesome issues would take care of themselves. This was brought up at the General Convention under the protest that all the "gay and lesbian stuff" was "distracting" everyone from the "real" work of the church--in that setting this meant attention primaril to the UN millennium Development Goals to eliminate extreme poverty. While these are clearly worthy goals, I fail to see how the denial of fundamental human rights of justice and equality to 10% of the world's population is not a "real" issue for the church. There are plenty of conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists who would easily vote to criminalize and imprison gay and lesbian sinners who are perfectly happy feeding and clothing the poor and the hungry. I cannot see, therefore, that attention to the "least of these" inevitably will solve the issue of justice for gay and lesbian persons. Justice will at times be painful, especially as we consider that in cases at law, there are sometimes winners and losers. I will note, as well, that the "liberal" dioceses are not the ones threatening to leave after the weak response of the general convention and the 11th hour compromise, nor have they threatened to "leave" over the noncompliance of conservative dioceses for years over questions regarding the ordination of women. It was the conservative ones that immediately began to act out their blackmailing threats.

Am I angry still? I guess that I am. Yes, I want to feed/clothe the poor. No, I do not want to "wait" for justice at some future nebulous time.

Jeffrey Shy
Mesa, Arizona
(I suppose I would be "mad as hell" perhaps if I believed in the existence of such a place.)