Belief In God - Why All the Sweat?

In a recent New York Times interview entitled, "Arguments Against God," philosophy professor Louise Antony was asked if she thought if it even much matters whether we believe in God or not." She responded,

Well, I do wonder about that. Why do theists care so much about belief in God? Disagreement over that question is really no more than a difference in philosophical opinion. Specifically, it’s just a disagreement about ontology — about what kinds of things exist. Why should a disagreement like that bear any moral significance? Why shouldn’t theists just look for allies among us atheists in the battles that matter — the ones concerned with justice, civil rights, peace, etc. — and forget about our differences with respect to such arcane matters as the origins of the universe?

From reading the rest of the interview one does not get the impression that Antony is a hard-shell religion hater, and her observations in this answer reflect a real puzzlement about why theists frequently take their theism so intensely seriously.  What's the big deal?  It is a good question honestly asked.  It deserves an answer.

But I'm not sure that there is an answer that is really going to make sense to her.  Earlier in the interview she implies that religious belief systems are all based on rationalizations rather than on rationality as she understands it.  What she considers "reasons" for believing are largely "the result of automatic unconsciousness processing, involving lots of unarticulated judgments."  She apparently feels that beliefs are an inferior way at arriving at truths based on a-rational considerations.  Her puzzlement and views on believing, if I've read them correctly point to a gap in understanding between theists and non-theists concerning the nature of reality that seems almost impossible to cross.  On the theist side of the gap, we make connections that make little sense on the other side.  Let me be clear that I am not talking here about hard-core religious fundamentalists who, in truth reside in another corner of reality much closer to hard-core atheists than to the rest of us.  Both of them live on the other side of another chasm, between dualist/absolutist and non-dualist/relativist ways of thinking, which is if anything wider and deeper than the one between theists and non-theists generally.

So, in any event, it appears almost impossible to explain to Antony in ways that she would comprehend why our faith in God is so important to us or why there is far more at stake for us than a "difference in philosophical opinion."  We can agree with her that we should seek allies among the non-theists when it comes to the struggle for a more just and peaceful society, but be that as it may fundamental questions about the origins and nature of reality are not merely "arcane matters" to us—even those of us who are not intent on defending a seven day creation myth or taking literally cherry-picked dogmas and prejudices from an ancient text that requires a wiser reading than it frequently receives.

It may be that in another entry here I will try to answer Antony's questions about why our faith in God is so important, but before trying such a thing it is important to acknowledge that the answer probably won't be of much help to her.  There is a gap that is really difficult to cross.  What is to be appreciated is that while she doesn't understand theist thinking she is reasonably respectful of it.  That, at least, is a start.

Why do people believe in God?

Why do people believe in God?  There is no direct physical evidence of God known to us now such as would prove God exists like a tree, a universe, or evolution exist.  So, why believe in God?

One answer is that people believe in God because they are socialized into such a belief.  This is certainly true for most Americans.  But, this response begs the question of why people believe in God, because at some point, somehow such belief had to start.  It had to be invented.  So, then, the question is why did people in the past invent God?  And the answer is, "We don't know"—not in the scientific sense of knowing.  There is no documentation, no evidence available to us to answer the question.  We can speculate, but in the absence of even the possibility of evidence our speculations one way or the other carry no weight.  So, while socialization is an explanation for why individuals believe in God, it does not explain why there is such a belief.  We don't know why it exists to be socialized.

Another answer is that people believe in God because they have experiences that they interpret to be divinely inspired.  These experiences are various and include such things as visions and deep spontaneous feelings (of peace, of holy terror, of profound love) experienced while in nature, while meditating/praying, while in group exercises (worship), and even while under stress.  But, again, the fact that people have experiences of God only explains why individuals believe in God.  Such experiences provide no evidence as to where they come from or why they should even exist at all.  Possibly, those who invented belief in God associated certain experiences with a notion of a divine being (or beings) or "spirit-ual" reality of some kind, but if that is what happened why did they make such a connection?  Why did the inventors of belief in God believe in God?  The answer is that we have no way of knowing.

The point here is that for those who put their faith in God faith is exactly that: faith.  It involves received traditions (socialization), personal experiences, pious exercises (worship, meditation, prayer) and reflection on "what makes sense," but at the end of the day it is faith—faith that there is a deeper, divine Reality beyond the socialization, experiences, and the reflection.  That faith can be compelling or it can be mildly interesting, profound or superficial, thought through carefully or blithely accepted at face value; but in all of this it is a faith that "makes sense" to the faithful.  While we don't know, then, why people believe in God, those of us who do have a sense that there is more to reality than what science or the senses perceive, something Deep, Powerful, and profoundly Creative.  For Christians, we sense that we come closest to that Something in Jesus of Nazareth, and we trust that our sense of the holy is so.  We trust in him that it is so.  Amen.

Warfare & the Rise of Civilization

In a research paper entitled, "War, space, and the evolution of Old World complex societies," a team of researchers led by Dr. Peter Turchin of the University of Connecticut, Storrs, reports the findings of its research into the causes of the spread of ancient complex societies.  It employed a computer model, which predicted with 65% accuracy where ancient civilizations actually arose.  While climate, geography, and the presence of agriculture are important contributing factors in the model, the team found that the primary factor for the emergence and growth of complex societies was warfare.    The report states, "We have argued here that this pattern was due to the emergence and spread of technologies enabling more intense forms of warfare that, in turn, created selection pressures for the cultural evolution of norms and institutions, making possible cooperating groups numbering in the millions."

If correct, people of faith have to ask some hard, unsettling questions about "the way God works" in the world.  It is one thing to see in war an example of human brokenness, but it is quite another to claim that warfare is a primary carrier of civilization.  That claim is counterintuitive in a seriously uncomfortable way.  How is it that a God of love built the hurt and horror of war into our creation?  This question is, of course, but a variation of the whole question of the relationship of God to evil.

For those of us who are people of faith, then, we stand somewhere between two realities.  One is evil.  The other one is the equally or still more compelling realities of love, beauty, and the way in which the universe is constructed to be hospitable to life on Earth.  We have witnessed and felt the power of a deeper spiritual reality, and without pretending that there are any easy answers to the other reality of evil our intuition as Christians is that God's will as we see it in Christ is ultimately not crucifixion but Resurrection.

It is a statement of faith when one says, "The reality of evil is so compelling I cannot believe in God."  There is no proving that a-theism is correct.  The same is true when one says, "The reality of love is so compelling that I must believe in God."  There is no proving that a theistic faith in God is correct.  That's why it is faith.  And any person of a theistic faith who is not uncomfortable with the provisional nature of faith is not paying attention to the real world that is the arena of our faith.  Once we get comfortable with our faith in God it turns into an idolatrous ideology.

Listening to Atheists

If it is true now, it will only be more the case in the future that people of religious faith are going to have to find ways to speak kindly and intelligently, indeed faithfully, with people of non-religious faiths.  They are already our children and grandchildren, and they will be an important voice in the future.  I'm not speaking here about the militant, fundamentalist so called "new atheists," who are as objectionable as religious fundamentalists—indeed, in a weird way are religious fundamentalists.  There are many, many others who do not practice religion who are who are willing to "live and let live" and even see the value of religious faith, just as many, many Christians see the value in the non-theistic religious faith of Buddhists.  It is time that we begin to think about how we relate and dialogue with folks of non-religious faiths, individuals who share many of our values and are committed to living a moral life that often includes a desire to serve others.

To this end, I would call readers' attention to a posting by Chris Stedman, Assistant Humanist Chaplain, at Harvard University, entitled, "In Wake of Newtown Shooting, Why Blame Atheists?"  Stedman objects to the right-wing Christian literalists and fundamentalists who blame "godless atheism" for the Newtown tragedy and calls for a deeper understanding between people of differing faiths, religious and non-religious.

Is Evolution "Guided"?

Earlier this year, the blog Open Parachute posted an article entitled, "Theological mental gymnastics over evolution," which criticizes theists who believe that God actively guides evolution for "throwing the baby out" with the bath water.  The author is a self-proclaimed non-theist who is concerned to protect the practice of science from theistic intrusions.  In the article, he says that he doesn't have a problem with those believers who think that God somehow initiated the evolutionary process and then leaves it alone so that it carries on unguided.  The author, however, does not approve of those theists who believe that God guides evolution.  He insists that evolution is an unguided process.  The Open Parachute posting echoes the sentiments of the biologist, Jerry A. Coyne, who has written (here), "...I vehemently oppose those evolutionists and accommodationists who won’t affirm that evolution is unguided and purposeless (in the sense of not being directed by a higher intelligence or teleological force). For to the best of our knowledge evolution, like all natural processes, is purposeless and unguided."

The short answer to these sentiments that theists often rush to is that they are nothing more or less than the opinions of individuals who do not know that evolution is purposeless and unguided.  Science, the argument goes, is not competent to judge such things.  In fact, by its very nature it is purposely blind to meta-physical realities.  When atheists assert the absence of God, they enter the realm of theology and make theological claims, and they can no more prove scientifically their anti-doctrines than we can prove our doctrines.

As far as it goes, our critique of their critique is correct.  As far as it goes.  But our atheistic friends raise a question that we should not dodge by jumping to our own counter-critique.  They are correct in observing that evolution is, as best we can tell, a random process that does not seem to be guided or to have purpose.  We should also pay attention to the danger of too easily imposing a theistic overlay onto natural processes, such as evolution.  Science is a valuable tool for obtaining knowledge, and we have to respect its integrity as such.

Still, theists approach such questions relying on another set of "data," which is not scientific but compelling.  For Christians, Jesus of Nazareth is the key data point, or perhaps it is better to say that the Incarnation is that key data point.  Religious experiences, which have a biological component and so are a part of the "real" world of science, comprises a second data point, one we Christians share with people of other faiths (and, apparently, some who claim no faith).  The almost mystical connection that we have with the natural world (and something we feel with particular clarity here in Lewis County) provides a third data point, perhaps linked to the second.  And, then, the ongoing process of creation is itself still another data point.  That a universe friendly to life on Earth even exists defies odds so incredible that on the face of it belief in an unguided and purposeless natural world seems more outlandish than belief that it the universe is in some way guided and built out of some purpose.  The speculation of some atheists that there is an infinite number of universes (so, of course, at least one must have life) only makes the whole thing even more incredible—an infinite reality that has no purpose?  The belief that evolution is purposeless and unguided is just a belief and one that has nothing to do with science as a set of disciplines devoted to study of the natural world.  Evolution, indeed, actually seems to be headed in a direction, one in which non-life leapt into life and non-intelligence became intelligence and, quite possibly, we are standing on the verge of another leap from biological intelligence to cyber-intelligence.  Over the course of evolution things are getting more complex.  To no end?  That could be, but given our other data points we Christians think that there is guided purpose to it all.  Evolution seems to have direction because it does have direction, within that direction there lies purpose, and Beyond that purpose there lies guidance.

But, what kind of purpose?  How is evolution "guided"?  We need to walk beyond some of our traditional thinking and answers because our non-theist friends are correct when they state that evolution does work randomly and does not appear to be guided.  They are correct that we can understand a great deal about the biology of evolution without recourse to metaphysical "speculations."  How can evolution be both guided and not, both purposeful and not?  Those are the questions we must face.  (Actually, we have long faced them in such questions as the relationship between divine sovereignty and human free will).

In For the Long Haul

In a report entitled, "Beliefs about God across Time and Countries," Tom W. Smith concludes on the basis of extensive data that, "while there is a drift towards lesser belief in God consistent with secularization theory the changes are modest in magnitude and mixed in scope. Countries have shown and are likely to continue to show huge differences in levels and trends about belief in God and a homogenization of belief (or disbelief) is unlikely to occur in the foreseeable future."  Belief in God is decreasing, but it is doing so only slowly at different rates in different countries and with different intensities.  Consistent with data from many other sources, Smith finds that the U.S. ranks among the highest nations in belief  in God and the lowest in unbelief.  Table 1 in the report shows that in 2008 only 3.0% of Americans agreed with the statement, "I do not believe in God," while 60.6% agreed that, "I know God really exists, and I have no doubt about it."  Smith's analysis of the data also found that 35.0% of Americans were "Strong Believers in God" (Table 4) and only 1.2% were "Strong Atheists" (Table 5).  Only two nations ranked higher than the U.S. in their number of strong believers and just four countries showed fewer strong atheists.  For the years 1998-2008, Smith shows a very slight decrease in atheism in the U.S. and a slight increase in the number who are certain God exists (Table 6).

In sum, religious faith is not going away any time soon, but the context in which we speak about faith is changing.  In the U.S., that change seems to be relatively slow when it comes to belief in God as such.  Participation in religious organizations, however, is declining and at a much higher rate than the decline in belief in God.  As I noted in a recent posting (here), even in relatively conservative Lewis County, NY, almost 60% of the population is "unclaimed" by any church.  The context churches face today is that faith in God's existence is no longer a given, such as it once was.  Trust in churches as places of importance is also no longer a given.  The importance of "going to church" on Sunday morning is similarly no longer a given.  The challenge we face in the church today, in any event, is not to get people to believe in God.  It is to get people to believe in churches.

God & Reality (I)

Is God real?  On first glance, this question seems simple and those of us who are people of faith will answer, "Of course, God is real."  On further reflection, the question is not at all simple, and we do well to think through our answer more carefully.  One description of God is that God is "ultimate reality."  Another one is, "God is Creator and Lord."  Still a third response is that "God is Love."  For this post, let's put the the second two descriptions aside and consider the first.

God is ultimate reality.  By this definition God is real but somehow different from the rest of reality, which is mundane rather than ultimate.  And that is just about all we can say about God as ultimate reality.  What is ultimate reality?  How is it different from everyday reality?  Is God as ultimate reality bound by the laws of normal every day reality?  Will we one day discover some that God has a physical presence in the universe that we haven't yet detected?  Our five human senses, the way we perceive reality, are all geared to detecting physical realities and while we acknowledge that some things are not "essentially" physical, such as love, yet they are real in a physical context.  Is the same true for God?  Is there something about God that is physical?

Or, are there aspects of reality, still hidden from us, that are beyond physical reality?  If so, what is the relationship of the metaphysical to the physical, and if God is a metaphysical reality what, again, is God's relationship to the physical world?  If we are limited by our senses to experiencing the physical world as the real world for us, then can we even answer any of these questions?  Or are they quite literally non-sense?

In the final analysis, we simply do not know how to deal with such abstract questions apart from faith.  We can say, "I believe that there is an ultimate reality beyond physical reality and that God is that ultimate reality."  Or, we can say, "I do not believe that there is such a thing as ultimate reality."   Theism and atheism are our choices, and to date we have no way of deciding which response is the correct one, which fact leads some to a third non-committal response of, "I don't know."  Agnosticism, indeed, seems to be the most logical response in face of the difficulties we face in otherwise discerning whether there is or is not a reality beyond physical reality.

From the perspective of faith, in other words, thinking of God as "ultimate reality" doesn't take us very far.  If we ground our faith in a God that is "ultimately real," all that we are left with is a bald, formless belief.  For, what else can we say about something that is ultimate?  Did this ultimate create reality or is it part of created reality?  If we affirm the ultimate reality of God, all we can really say about God is that God is Beyond our perceptions of reality.  God is Beyond any knowledge we can have of God, at least so far.  Maybe some day we will figure out what "ultimate" reality is and thus we can gain for ourselves knowledge of God—or, maybe we'll find a way to prove there is no ultimate reality at all.  But we have not reached either such point yet.  We either choose to believe in God, not to believe in God, or not to choose.  Those are our choices when it comes to God the Beyond.  Stay tuned.