I have usually thought of myself as a fideist and such thought probably dominates my decade-long neglected web site.
Since reading David Tracy and Schubert Ogden, I've been provoked by their suggestion that I'd paraphrase as follows: if God's very definition is such that human life as we know it would be all but impossible or even inconceivable without it, then what higher bar could it possibly pass to be considered a metaphysical truth?
Schubert Ogden proposes such a definition:
I hold that the primary use or function of “God” is to refer to the objective ground in reality itself of our ineradicable confidence in the final worth of our existence. It lies in the nature of its basic confidence to affirm that the real whole of which we experience ourselves to be parts is such as to be worthy of, and thus itself to evoke, that very confidence. The word “God,” then, provides the designation for whatever it is about this experienced whole that calls forth and justifies our original and inescapable trust, thereby meaning existentially, as William James once said, “'You can dismiss certain kinds of fear.'” From this it follows that to be free of such fear by existing in this trust is one and the same thing with affirming the reality of God. (The Reality of God, Schubert M. Ogden, p.37)
A few quick points before scurrying off to work...
First, the experience of God so defined is not limited to any one sectarian religion. In fact it is not tied to any particular use of religious language at all. All people associated with any religious tradition – Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, etc. - participate in this reality and have this knowledge. So do atheists – though they will balk at the idea of calling such a thing “knowledge of God”.
Schubert later says that even a suicide commits the act because he or she thinks there is some final meaning or worth to their lives – otherwise, why even bother?
Second, as a Christian, I believe the particular Christian spin on this knowledge of God is that for Christians, God is revealed in the crucified Jesus Christ. That is to say, it is not only in the good, the beautiful, the joyous events in life in which we encounter this “objective ground” that calls forth our “original and inescapable trust” in “the final worth of our existence”, but also the dark and tragic aspects of human experience.
Any thoughts?
Bill Bekkenhuis
(Bethlehem, PA)
4 comments:
I guess the question I would have for a Christian who holds this universal viewpoint is "Why bother with Christianity at all?" One must dismiss the gospel accounts of Jesus saying he is the only way to God in addition to the same sentiments expressed in the texts of the earliest Christians. If no religion really matters, why 'believe' in any of them?
Although the concept of multiple right ways to God is a very human-appealing concept, it doesn't really make much sense of religion to me.
I suppose you could just say, "Well, I just like Christian traditions...they make me feel at-home and comfortable." But they seem irrelevant and pointless if this is the case.
Have I misunderstood? How do you make sense of this? Thanks.
"Why bother with Christianity at all?"
Boy, if that isn't a question that's crossed my mind at 11:00 PM on-a-school-night church board meetings that refuse to come to an end :-)
I believe that Jesus is the only way to God, but which Jesus?
Jesus the man (“man” as in “mortal”) only lived about 30 years some 2,000 years ago. If salvation is limited to face time with that person then, as Jeremiah might put it, we are all doomed.
If we say that salvation is limited to those who have accepted (which might be another word for internalized) Jesus as Jesus is presented to them in the various institutions of Christendom (church, sacraments, preaching, pietism), then the great majority of us are all doomed.
Most people on this planet (during and since the time of Jesus) are not and never will be Christian. A great many of them (let's start with the large numbers of babies that die in infancy) will never either encounter nor accept Jesus in the way in which that phrase is generally meant.
And, of course, the entirety of human life before Jesus could not have pursued Jesus as the only way to God, again, in any way in which that phrase is normally meant.
Now even as I (in the interest of full disclosure) have been a member of a Unitarian Universalist church for the last eleven years, I have no particular issue with either the doctrine of the Trinity or the possibility that people, even large numbers of people, might ultimately be damned. (Theologically speaking, this puts me – in the context of my church – somewhat to the right of Pat Buchanan :-)
But I have a problem with such damnation merely being the result of such historical idiosyncrasies as when and where a person is born and the quality of such Christian evangelism as they might accidentally encounter in the course of their lives – presuming they've lived in such a time that such evangelism even existed.
No, the map – as Wittgenstein once said – is not the territory. Encountering theological or liturgical or polemical or evangelical verbal or ritual symbols of God in Christ at least partially differs encountering the reality of God in Christ just as encountering the word “lightning” differs from being struck by lightning on the golf course.
And the gospel in which Jesus declares “No one comes to the Father except by me” is the same gospel in which the entire world's creation (including the non-Christian or secular world's creation) is said to occur through the Word of God which is Christ.
The reality of God in Christ is extravagantly available in all of Creation including the very ugliest events in life – so an encounter of Christ is possible no matter the historical accidents of one's personal history.
It is our duty as Christians (if that is where one is coming from) to do what other people might not be able to do – discern this reality “available yet concealed” within the stuff of ordinary, day-to-day experience, witness to it, celebrate it and live out its implications.
There is, to my mind, no more accurate description of God's relationship to humanity and all creation than that found in the Christian tradition. That being said, simple realism should cause us to consider that other people relying on less accurate, shall we say, non-Christian or secular thought forms may, in the final judgment of God, be found to be more closely aligned with God's purpose than ourselves as Christians explicitly committed to that purpose.
Thanks for your response.
Interesting take, Bill, but I have a bit of a problem tying this into your arguement in a meaningful way ...
Schubert later says that even a suicide commits the act because he or she thinks there is some final meaning or worth to their lives – otherwise, why even bother?
Are you, in fact, implying that all suicides are committed due to an understanding of the importance of a diestic understanding of the world?
I can think of discussions of suicide notes that explain that the person no longer wanted to deal with the sufferings of this reality. I can also see where people have killed themselves to escape the punishment of society. But, hastening onself's death to prove a point about the supernatural, or about the reality of our experience? I'm skeptical ...
Likely, I'm just misunderstanding.
Also, I'm having an issue with the quote from Ogden, the primary use or function of “God” is to refer to the objective ground in reality itself of our ineradicable confidence in the final worth of our existence. Why need there be a 'worth' to our existance? What if we -are not- confident about it? Even if there is some 'confidence of worth' that we can recognize objectively, then why don't all cultures have the -same- aspects to their conceptions of what God(s) are?
This definition sort of fits with what I had said before about the individuality of the development of the 'cognitive map', but seems to me to be nigh unto useless in terms of really understanding God(s). If God(s) -are- in fact reflections of our objective realities of our own worth, then what is their use at all other than to stroke our own egos and make use feel more important -to ourselves-?
Thanks!
Are you, in fact, implying that all suicides are committed due to an understanding of the importance of a diestic understanding of the world?
I believe there are two orders of belief – or, for that matter, non-belief.
The fundamental level is pre-reflective. Certainly we have all had the experience of knowing where someone was 'at' on some issue before they knew it themselves.
I think Ogden would say that all humanity shares this pre-reflective belief in God, despite the fact that most of them would not be aware of it or, if aware of it at some level, would not use the phrase “belief in God” to describe it and probably most who would use the phrase “belief in God” may not hold (reflective) beliefs that are even within shouting range of orthodox Christian belief.
A person who decides to kill themselves is someone who believes that there is, in fact, a decision to make. And so, per Ogden, even in the act of suicide they bear witness to their belief that in the grand scheme of things their decisions are significant. (I can't speak for Schubert Ogden on this, but I certainly recognize the severe boundary issues of life that could lead one to such a decision.)
This is different from the reflective level of belief where we do what we're doing now – thinking and talking about our human experience.
Most people do not use Christian lingo, and many do not use even theistic lingo, to describe this experience.
So, at a reflective level, I certainly do not want to imply that people only commit suicide because they've come to understand the world in deistic terms.
That sounds more like something H.P. Lovecraft would come up with :-)
Why need there be a 'worth' to our existence? What if we -are not- confident about it?
I've been involved in the back-and-forth with atheists for going on fifteen years now, and I've never met one who did not believe that their own existence (and, by extension, the existence of other individuals such as themselves as well as the communities in which such individuals exist) was fundamentally worthwhile.
The true ideological opponent of Christianity is not atheism, it is nihilism.
Certainly both Christians and atheists are confronted by events in life that cause one to question that worth and may even damage it to such an extent as to stunt their growth as persons. (Or, depending on their response to that challenge, make them even stronger persons.)
But it is hard to imagine one who has reached the nihilistic ultimate where all sense of worth and meaning and significance have been erased from the individual.
Which is why the Christian doctrine of the Fall states that all people are thoroughly corrupted but does not say (at least in its more orthodox renderings) that all people are evil.
Only something that remains fundamentally good can become corrupted.
If God(s) -are- in fact reflections of our objective realities of our own worth, then what is their use at all other than to stroke our own egos and make use feel more important -to ourselves-?
Your use of “reflections of our ... realities” seems to imply that we are talking about the subjective rather than objective reality of our lives' significance.
My experience of my own significance is subjective.
The question is, is this subjective experience anchored by an objective (that is, mind-independent) reality.
I guess there are only two possible answers. (Please let me know if I've stumbled into the fallacy of the excluded middle.)
First, “yes it is.”
Second, “no it isn't”.
If the answer is “yes it is”, then both theists and atheists can reflectively argue as to the best language to be used to describe that reality (theological / atheological, supernaturalist / naturalist, etc.).
If the answer is “no it isn't” then there's not much to reflect about and even less reason to reflect on it.
If the answer is that there is no objective reality anchoring this subjective experience, then we are self-organizing bio-carbon entities no more significant then the mold growing on a rotting orange but who, through an evolutionary quirk, must experience a (false) subjective sense of significance to survive long enough to perpetuate the species. (Not that there's any significance to that either :-)
Now, it is certainly possible that this is, in fact, the case.
However, the situation with which we are faced is one in which, on the one hand, most people (including atheists) do not act as if this was the case (which doesn't mean it can't be the case) and, on the other hand, it shuts down all discussion on pretty much everything.
Thanks,
Bill
Post a Comment