Naturalistic Faith

30 03 2011

Scientists have facts; religious people have faith, right? Life is one giant naturalistic process with no need for God—a big bang, stars forming, planets coalescing, continents drifting, life generating, and complexity increasing as we journey from microbe to man. So the story goes.

So you can imagine my surprise while scanning Scientific American, to find atheist John Horgan entitling his article on abiogenesis as follows: “Pssst! Don’t tell the creationists, but scientists don’t have a clue how life began.”[1] Twenty years ago the author suggested this headline, capturing how scientists were having a hard time agreeing on any details relating to life’s first emergence from non-life.  But that editor is gone.  And as Horgan argues, this headline is “even more apt today.”

The more we discover, the more there is to discover, and the greater our realization that life is phenomenally complex. As atheist cosmologist Fred Hoyle once stated, in regard to the fine-tuning of universal constants, “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.”

Well, how complex is ‘life’? Surely we can add the right ingredients and, hey presto, out pops a simple cell. Not quite. Let’s consider just one angle: chirality.

Hold out your two hands in front of you, palm down. (They’re beautiful, aren’t they—you could be a finger-jockey, mama!) Two hands: identical, yet symmetrical. Try shaking hands right to left, or left to right, and it won’t work. Obvious. But you may not know that every organic molecule has a handed-ness, or a chirality: levorotatory (left-handed), and dextro-rotatory (right-handed). In nature there is a racemic mixture, meaning a 50/50 combination of L- and R-handed forms. And there is no known natural mechanism to self-organize this chemical cocktail.

So what? The ‘simplest’ cell imaginable consists of 10,000 amino acids (all randomly left-handed) and 100,000 DNA nucleotides (all randomly right-handed). Let’s say we skip over how we generated these amino acids and DNA nucleotides in a hostile environment. And let’s ignore the precise sequencing of the twenty or so types of amino acids, and four nucleotide forms, necessary as information to code for essential life-maintaining proteins. Let’s grant all of this. How likely is it that by pure chance you could string together the cell with a handshake that worked? Just one incorrect handshake and the backbone of life is broken—back to square one.

Try flipping a coin to get 10,000 heads, then 100,000 tails. For the mathematically minded, this is 1 chance in 10301,029,996. That’s a 1 with over 300 million zeroes after it. Try winning 43,000,000 state lotteries in a row.[2] This is not just lucky: it’s impossible. Typically 1 in 1050 is set as the point of statistical impossibility. Pushing further, double PhD mathematician William Dembski argues that this ‘unlikelihood’ exceeds the “universal bounds of probability”: 1080 particles in the known universe all interacting together at 1045 times per second (Planck time) for 1025 seconds (the upper age of the universe) means the absolute maximum trials possible is 10150.[3] ‘Chance’ is not an explanation.

Now, some at this point will caricature my critique as ignorance inserting God in the gap. But isn’t this to presume that naturalism is right: that only natural causes are allowed to explain nature, and we will—nay must—progress toward a satisfactory mechanism. Yet even atheistic evangelist Richard Dawkins recognizes that “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”[4] We can only climb Mount Improbable once we have first life, so neo-Darwinian mechanism is of no help here. Further, every code we know points to an encoder. So if life looks designed, then perhaps it is. Surely ‘creation’ must at least be admitted as a possible primary cause for all that is. Positively, life exhibits the hallmarks of design. Negatively, no natural mechanism can account for the sheer improbability.

What, then, do we make of scientists having facts, and religious people having faith? Simple. It’s a myth. There is no such divide. We all trust certain things in order to know. And when it comes to the origin of life, it’s not for scientific reasons that God’s existence and action is discounted. Can you smell the metaphysical rat? This is ‘naturalism-of-the-gaps’. This is naturalistic faith. This is an a priori commitment to materialism that seems “devised not to get in facts but to keep out God”.[5]

I have no need to put words in the naturalist’s mouth. Let me close with Dawkins’ response as part of the Edge Foundation.  When asked “What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?” he replied: “I believe that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all ‘design’ anywhere in the universe, is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection.”[6]

We all seek facts, and we all have faith. As the highest form of sentient life on this finely-tuned planet, in what, or whom, do you ultimately place your faith?

Dave Benson

[2] Ralph O. Muncaster, A Skeptic’s Search for God (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2002), 98.

[4] Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: Norton, 1986), 6.

[5] C. S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry.”

[6] What We Believe But Cannot Prove, ed. John Brockman (London: Pocket Books, 2005), 9.

 


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Categories : Bar Conversations and Cheap Advice, On Anything and Everything, Tough Questions

Dancing Hula-Hula in Tahiti

28 03 2011

In an 1867 play called Peer Gynt, Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen expresses what would become one of the fundamental dogmas of modern, and even more post-modern, humanism: “What should a man be? Himself.” A person is not to become, or to be discovered, or to be pruned and refined, or to conform to an ideal; a person is to be expressed. As philosopher Tzvetan Todorov explains, “the individual is not formed by succeeding attempts, through encounters or experiences which constitute his destiny, but reveals – or does not reveal – an identity which has always lied in him… No experience is negative in itself, provided it conforms to the being who lives it.”[1]

Though simple common sense in the 21st century, this belief, which Robert Bellah names “expressive individualism”, in his classic Habits of the Heart, was not as obvious in the 19th or even 20th centuries. For ages men and women understood themselves according to their roles, their duties, their place in society, or the expectations God or people had for them. People married who was assigned to them; they took the profession their parents had or variations permitted in their social class; they strived to be good fathers, mothers and children; they kept traditions, prayers and prejudices.

We know all too well the wonderful benefits individualism brought us: freedom to follow our own conscience, deeper awareness of oneself, an appreciation of individuality and authenticity, liberty to marry the person with whom we are in love. We are more in tune with our desires, we can gather the courage to venture into unprestigious or low-paying professions, we choose the lifestyle we want. We can follow or not our parents’ political allegiance, religious beliefs and social self-understanding. We can, in summary, abandon everything to marry a local Tahitian and establish a Bed & Breakfast in Bora Bora, praying to the spirit of the island, voting Communist and dancing the hula-hula in the evenings, and feel okay about it.

But while still enjoying the benefits of our freer social self, I guess it would be wise to acknowledge also what raw individualism took away from us. If my personal purpose is to just become and express myself, then I lose all meaningful outside sources of identity. To grow is to refine and use my talents; to love is to follow my tastes. Gone is the notion that I am to be challenged, that often I am in the wrong, that I should resist inclinations and walk away from temptations. We become a self-referential self, and our windows to the outside world get so fuzzy that they become distorted mirrors of ourselves. As someone put it, “The narrowness of such a gaze, caused by its attention to only one object, causes us to miss the world (not to mention God) for what it is. All else sits in fuzziness of peripheral vision and is only seen in reference to the primary object, ourselves.”[2]

I should be myself, true. But I guess I should be also my richer self, a better me, and if that is to happen, I have to look beyond myself: I am to listen and to be willing to be challenged. I have to raise my gaze and look at the world, look at the marvel of existence without having me at its center, and be open to change and grow. I may still abandon everything and head for Tahiti, but that would be not a decision of someone who shut himself from the outside world, but who chose to listen meaningfully and to become my better self.

René Breuel

[1] Tzvetan Todorov, La Bellezza Salverà il Mondo: Wilde, Rilke, Cvetaeva [Les Aventuriers de l’absolu] (Milano: Garzanti, 2010), 34-35.

[2] Matt Jenson, The Gravity of Sin: Augustine, Luther and Barth on Homo Incurvatus In Se (London and New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 73.


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Journeying through our DNA

24 03 2011

Professor Antony Flew has been described as one of the most influential atheists of the 20th century. He lectured philosophy in Oxford and several other universities. For decades he was a much respected defender and proponent of the non-existence of God. In 2004, however, Prof. Flew publicly renounced atheism. He famously shared his philosophical pilgrimage in ‘There’s a God: How the world’s most notorious atheist changed his mind.’[1] Prof. Flew affirmed that ‘years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.’[2] He has also stated that ‘a deity or a super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life or the complexity of nature.’[3]

The microscopic intricacies of our DNA may sound a small reason to change someone’s mind. Even more so if this person has maintained an atheist position for several decades, and was one of its foremost defenders. Yet the human DNA is more complex than we ever thought possible: if we stretched the DNA of a single cell, it would have nearly 1.8 meters. Now, if we were to link together the DNA of each one of the trillions and trillions of our body cells, it’d reach the moon and back thousands of times. That’s a long journey, isn’t it?

Until recent years, it was accepted that identical twins had identical DNA. Recent scientific studies, however, have demonstrated that identical twins have very similar, but not identical DNA.[4] The obvious conclusion is that there aren’t two physically identical people in the world. Each one of us is singular. Besides, we have particular personalities; we have unique ways of thinking; we have a set of desires, dreams, fears that is not shared by anyone else.

Geneticist Francis Collins, the director of the Human Genome Project, led the team which mapped the human DNA. His investigation of the minutiae of the human body made him express a wonder before the complexity of nature similar to that of Antony Flew. “The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful.”[5] With different language, a similar view was expressed by David, a musician, poet and ancient king, who wrote the following words to God: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”[6]

Christians believe that the reason why every person is fascinating and singular is because the hands of an incomparable potter have formed us. God himself planned and created the existence of humanity, as the beginning of the Bible affirms: ‘Then God said: “Let us make human beings [...]” So God created human beings […].’[7] Before anyone of us, there was Someone. There are many of us, because Someone has always been.

I understand that there are many reasons why someone would argue that God does not exist. Yet the complexities of nature, the glories of earth, the immensity of outer space, and the careful design of the human body should, at least, make us ponder what originated our universe. I am glad that someone as established and prestigious as Dr. Flew was open to investigate the evidence and change his mind. We may study nature like he did and finish with a different opinion, surely. But hey, there is a fairly good chunk of DNA to go through.

Hélder Favarin

[2] See this interview with Antony Flew: http://www.biola.edu/antonyflew/
[5] Francis Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (2006), p. 211
[6] Psalm 139:13
[7] Genesis 1:26-27

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Categories : Tough Questions

Poetry and Sacredness

23 03 2011

The German poet, theologian, and philosopher Novalis, a leading figure of European Romanticism, wrote these words about the poet’s identity: “Poets and priests were at first the same thing; they were separated only in later ages. But the true poet has always remained a priest, as the true priest has remained a poet. Shouldn’t we recuperate this old state of things?” I have loved poetry since I was a little girl, and am privileged to teach and write today, and I cannot but agree with Novalis. For me there was always something sacred in poetry.

Poetry helps us describe reality with the eyes of the soul. Poetry is the breath of life. It is heaven descending on earth. Poetry is to talk with God. Poetry is the silence of God. Only through poetry can we describe the beauty that surrounds us, the beauty of creation and of love.

Poetry is not simple language. Poetry is the dawn, strawberries with cream, the wind blowing through the hair, a kiss, silk, two people who love each other, blueberries, pleasure, Chagall, the sunset, a flake of satin, a butterfly, popcorn, to cuddle, a child’s foot, words of love, the moon, to talk with God, a smile, a dance step, the stars, a dream, a yes, the sun, tango, a strike, red wine, a tulip, a tickle, a hug, a hand meeting another hand, to run until exhaustion, music, ice-cream, flowers, a white screen, Friday night at the movies, eyes, roller coasters, New York, Bach, car racing, art, a shiver, the sea, the cross, a mother’s breast, cherries, snow, perfume, to talk with friends, Botticelli’s Venus, ballerinas, a park bench.

Poetry helps touch infinitude, to feel alive amidst the immensity of the universe, to know the largeness of our soul: a reality too deep to be just earthly. There is a piece of infinitude, of heaven, of God inside us. The God who one day made himself man and descended on earth to die on the cross and offer us life: through that blood the most beautiful poetry of all history was crafted, because in that gesture of love was written my name and your name. There were all the hope and beauty of a new life in that sacrifice: you are the poetry of God.

I can’t describe God except through poetry. When I look at You I live the dream of the star that breathes charm. Poetry helps me talk with God and about God: poetry is sacred. The poet is, after all, a priest.

Federica Gramiccia is a poet and writer in Rome, Italy. She blogs at Fragili Pensieri Estemporanei.


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Categories : Spirituality for the Rest of Us

Success’ Failure

21 03 2011

“The distance between self-confidence and arrogance is almost imperceptible. That time arrogance dominated me and taught me a lesson I would never forget.”[1] So concludes a chapter of Jack, the autobiography of the legendary General Electric CEO Jack Welch. In a time when company acquisitions were fashionable, Welch admits buying a company based more on his track record of success than on careful investigation of the transaction. GE’s purchase of Kidder ended as a monumental failure, splashing a train wreck of multimillion dollar losses, corruption scandals and a tainted reputation.

In a study of how do mighty companies fall, business expert Jim Collins notes that “hubris born of success” is the first stage of downfall. Collins notes that in these situations “Success is viewed as ‘deserved,’ rather than fortuitous, fleeting, or even hard earned in the face of daunting odds; people begin to believe that success will continue no matter what the organization decides to do, or not to do.”[2] Past success, in other words, may be the best predictor of future failure, when interpreted incorrectly.

The problem is that the interpretation of success is a tricky thing. For here we are personally involved; we want to attribute our success to our own brilliance. The renown brought by an accomplishment may be the very thing we build our identity on.  We hopelessly desire to be thought of as successful, and may be willing to perform more than one trick of mind to convince ourselves that we deserve success and will stay successful no matter what. Victories have this blinding quality: they erect a cloud of dust in the very moment when the race is close and won by an inch.  Success can breed denial of reality and of our limitations, and thus be the godfather of our worst failures.

Which is why success is one of the worst categories with which we may want to understand ourselves. Better to aim at being useful, or productive, or constructive. Success generates self-absorption, pride and pettiness; constructiveness dwells on our capacities but for other people’s sake.  Success thinks of our own accomplishments, and the applause we may gain. Usefulness regards our contributions, but the benefit others receive. One looks inward, the other outward. One trips on itself, and falls. The other sprints forward, welcoming triumph and disappointment alike, for neither are that important, nor do they cloud our thinking. We learn from them but are not defined by them, because we do not live for ourselves anyway, nor is being successful a definition of true success.

René Breuel

[1] Jack Welch and John A. Byrne, Jack Definitivo: Segredos do Executivo do Seculo. Trans. Afonso Serra, 4rd Ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Campus, 2001)

[2] Jim Collins, How the Mighty Fall And Why Some Companies Never Give In (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 43.


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Imperial Politics vs Democracy

18 03 2011

In my last Wondering Fair article, I discussed how inconvenience sometimes aids credibility, particularly for politicians. Similarly, I suggested that Jesus has credibility because He says a lot of inconvenient things. I finished by saying, “Of course, the most unpopular thing Jesus says is actually what makes this whole article almost irrelevant…” You might wonder what this unpopular thing is.

It’s simply this: that He is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ comes from the Greek Christos, the translation of the Aramaic Messiah. Messiah in first century Palestine specifically referred to a king. And the Greek word we translate as “Lord” is actually kurios, which can also be translated “Emperor”. At the time around Jesus’ life on earth, the Roman emperors like Caesar Augustus and Nero, were called kurioi, emperors.

Another highly relevant word is “gospel”, the translation of euangelion. Most Christians will probably tell you that “gospel” means “good news”. That is actually a poor translation. New Testament historian, N. T. Wright explains:

In the Greek world, as is well known among scholars, euangelion is a regular technical term, referring to the announcement of a great victory, or to the birth, or accession, of an emperor. (The first and third of these could of course easily be combined, if someone became emperor by means of a great military victory.)[1]

Say, you live in a village that wants to fight against an invading king and his army. You send your troops out, over the hill, to fight the invader. A day later, a herald walks into your village to announce the euangelion, that the invading king has won the battle, and you are now under his rule. The herald has run on ahead to announce his victory, and to prepare for his arrival. The new king might prove to be a kind ruler, a better ruler than your village had before. But either way, he is now your ruler.

A more accurate translation of euangelion or gospel than “good news” would probably be “Grand Decree”. N. T. Wright goes on:

When the herald makes a royal proclamation, he says ‘Nero (or whoever) has become emperor.’ He does not say ‘If you would like to have an experience of living under an emperor, you might care to try Nero.’ The proclamation is an authoritative summons to obedience.[2]

Westerners think in terms of democratic politics, where the ruler is determined by votes – rule is defined by “most liked”. Most of the world has never thought that way. They’ve thought in terms of imperial politics, where the ruler comes to power by overcoming all rivals militarily – rule is defined by “most strong”. If they’re liked, that’s nice, but not necessary.

Our democratic brains can think Jesus is a cosmic politician vying for our popularity, versus other “candidates”, such as Buddha, Mohammed, Marx etc. This misunderstands the situation. Jesus does not derive His authority from our approval, but from defeating all other rivals for power over us. This is why the resurrection is so utterly important. All of us, undeniably, are ruled by death – we all die, whether we approve of it or not. Jesus’ resurrection defeats Death, His ultimate rival for power over us. Therefore, He rules ultimately. It is more realistic to assess your decision about Jesus, not on whether you find His message attractive, but whether the evidence for His victory – namely the resurrection – is compelling.

Jesus is not trying to be your President or Prime Minister. He is Lord. He rules. You might find that immensely unjust, feeling that you have the right to choose your ruler. But a democratic village will learn very quickly that they can’t resist a ruler just with disapproval. You must ask yourself, not whether you want Jesus to rule over you, but whether you are powerful enough to defeat Him. And to be frank, if death couldn’t defeat Him, I don’t like your chances. You might not like it either, but this isn’t a popularity contest. Jesus Christ is Lord.

Matt Gray 

[1] N. T. Wright, What St Paul really said, 1997, p.43.

[2] N. T. Wright, What St Paul really said, 1997, p.45


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Categories : The Heart of Faith

Choosing Credibility over Convenience

16 03 2011

Recently, the Australian Labor government announced an emissions trading scheme. The validity of the scheme has been debated since, but perhaps of more interest has been the response by the Australian populace. See, the government had “promised” at the last election that they wouldn’t bring in an emissions tax, because most Australians don’t want one. Our Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has had to fend off the charge of “backflipping”, including some radio personalities calling her “Juliar” in response.

Some people have been rather nonchalant about the whole thing, cynically resigned to the fact that the last election was very tightly contested (we were inches from a hung parliament), and so “of course” both sides would lie a little in their campaign promises – it’s what politicians do. But another group of people are very angry, because of a sense of broken trust.

What I find significant is the sense of credibility we assign to politicians who tell us things we don’t want to hear. On one hand, we want the good news, even if it’s a lie (elections across the world are evidence of this). But on the other hand, we really want the bad news, if it’s a necessary truth. Think of Al Gore as an example: he has had much more success in his campaign about Global Warming (the emissions trading scheme is evidence of that!), precisely because his movie was called An Inconvenient Truth – since he told us an inconvenient but potentially important message, we more naturally give his message credibility.

All this points to a simple observation – importance, unpopularity and credibility often go together. If somebody has the guts to tell us something that we don’t like to hear, but that is really important, then we will respect their message more, at least in the long term. In the short term, their unpopular claim is at serious risk of us rejection– but they do have more credibility than the person just telling us what we want to hear.

One of the things that I find curious about people’s responses to Jesus and the gospel, is how often it comes down to whether they like everything He says. Inevitably, they find there are some things that Jesus says that they definitely do not like. At times, during His preaching, Jesus seems to have specifically gone out of His way to say unpopular things – if Jesus was a politician, He needed to get a much better speech writer! For example,

But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. (Matthew 5:39-41 TNIV)

ìIn another place, John 6:60-66, Jesus watches as many of His new followers abandon Him, because He tells them the opposite of what they want to hear.

Personally, there are plenty of things that Jesus says, and indeed that the Bible says, that I do not like – if I had my way, He wouldn’t have said them. The thing is, it’s precisely because He does say unpopular things, that I believe Him. If He only told me the things I wanted to hear, that might be nice for a while, but it would inevitably reek of “sugar-coating”. I don’t want a convenient Jesus, I want a credible one. I choose to follow Christ because He is honest, brutally honest. That makes Him credible – that rarest of jewels: trustworthy.

Of course, the most unpopular thing Jesus says is actually what makes this whole article almost irrelevant… but I’ll save that for my next article.

Matt Gray


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Categories : The Heart of Faith

Rob Bell’s Hell_, and God’s Goodness

14 03 2011

[Note: unfortunately the software behind WF assumes the word hell_ is a curse word, and changes it automatically to @#!*% ... Till I figure how to fix this spelling issue, I've added _ to the end of the word, so it stays readable.)

The underlying tension behind the latest theological controversy – about Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins – is our uncomfortable belief in hell_. On the one hand, the New Testament, and Jesus especially, talk often about hell_, and suggest it is a nasty reality. On the other hand, hell_ sounds a Medieval, cruel belief, the dirtiest pleasure of a sadist God, a place where eternal suffering lasts far longer than the earthly sins committed. Many of us, then, wish to explain hell_ away, understandably, and Rob Bell’s book is the latest example of this sentiment.

In my view, however, whatever content we ascribe to hell_ – definitive death, eternal suffering, some meaningless state away from God – the existence of some form of hell_ is necessary if we are to have an all-good God. To get rid of hell_ does not give us a more loving God; rather, it gives us a more cruel, more mediocre God. A perfect heaven can exist only if there is also a hell_; if there is no hell_, there won’t be a heaven either, and neither earth: everything is consumed by hell_.

Let me explain. If a good God did not want to punish evil somehow, this could mean only two things. Either true, objective evil does not exist – date rape, systematic genocide, use of mentally sick people for selfish purposes, all these are not evil - and should not be punished. I don’t think any of us would sanely advocate this option, would we? Or else God does not care about evil. He gives in, hides the dirt under the carpet, and lets evil go unpunished. He looks at the Holocaust, at the hills of corpses in concentration camps, looks Hitler in the eye, and says that it is ok, no big deal. He looks at the father who preys on his daughter every evening, and shares her with his friends, and prefers to shy away instead of naming that evil.

Can you see the God we end up with? It is not a more loving God, but a less loving God. It is a God who does not care about evil, who in the name of sentimentality calls everything all right, and who ultimately is not good. It is a God who does not care about us. It is a God who watches the nightmare of wars and abuse and exploitation and selfishness and is too weak to care, or too timid to name evil as evil, or who is does not know what goodness is. We wanted a God so good that he abolishes hell_, but we end up with a God so weak that hell_ takes over him.

Instead, God’s provision of hell_ means that he takes our reality seriously, and does not let any evil act we suffer go unseen. God’s hatred of evil is a consequence of his unflinching goodness; his wrath is the greatest demonstration of his love. Only a God who abhors evil could be any good; only a God who sadly makes space for hell_ can redeem reality truly and create a heaven out of our mess. Hell_ does not mean that God is cruel, it means just the opposite: that he is not cruel, that he opposes evil without blinking, and that he is wondrously good.

Hell_  and God’s opposition to evil are not repulsive doctrines of a cruel God. On the very contrary: they are evidence of how unspeakably good our God is. Nor are they what the Christian message is about: they are just the shadows of a very bright picture, the low echoes of a virtuoso symphony, the dirt that shows that God’s shoes do indeed walk on this world; they are just the necessary consequences of the evil of this world. God is not focused on hell_, not at all. He is rather at work in the redemption of reality, in the restoration of every living thing to the glorious peace of heaven, to his society of purity and justice and love. God does not ignore or take pleasure in evil, but he is so indescribably good that he looks evil in the eye, and so indescribably graceful as to include and redeem evil people like us in his heavenly masterpiece. He is in fact so good that he offered himself to pay for our sins, and satisfy his wrath, so that hell_  does not take over reality, but is in fact dwarfed by the majestic redeemed society of heaven. This is goodness beyond description, this is a wide-eyed redeemer of evil, this is a trustworthy architect of heaven.

René Breuel

[i] Romans 12:17-21 NIV.


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Categories : Tough Questions

An Invitation

11 03 2011

I want to invite you to reconsider Christianity.  Let me explain…

Over the last few weeks there has been an explosive controversy in many Christian circles in North America over a book.  Certainly, this is not the first time such a boiling controversy has taken place. (Heck, the only reason I started reading the Harry Potter books is because someone told me they were dangerous and evil. Turns out they’re delightful.) This time the controversy is about Rob Bell’s next book, Love Wins, which revists some traditional doctrines of salvation, heaven and hell.

However, unlike some previously controversial books like The Da Vinci Code, the book in question has been written by one who self-identifies as a Christian and happens to be an influential pastor. He has been denounced and dismissed by major evangelical leaders in North America and for about a week blogs and twitter were on fire with discussions of the merits or problems of the book. An accessible New York Times article explains the controversy, and it was featured also in CNN’s Belief blog.

But here’s what is particularly striking about all this: no one has read it yet.  Because it hasn’t yet been published. Sure, a few people have seen some advance chapters and there is a promotional video but, still, no one has read it. Before moving on, I should note that I haven’t read the book either so I don’t know if in the end I will agree with it or not…but getting mad before the conversation starts won’t allow me to hear what this person has to say in the first place.

Nevertheless, this author has been accused of a variety of things like being a “universalist,” and “unbiblical” and it seems that people are drawing boundary lines left and right.  These knee-jerk reactions, at least to my mind, are unhelpful and reveal just how narrow many people’s understanding of Christianity really is. It is amazing to me that people will hold so tenaciously to their own particular Christian tradition of understanding that when they encounter ideas that fall outside it they are viewed as non-Christian or threatening. The truth is that Christian “tradition” is a much wider river than many people are willing to acknowledge they are swimming in.

Are you a mystic?  Try reading John’s gospel, the book of Ephesians, Julian of Norwich,  Meister Eckhart or Bernard of Clairvaux’s commentary on the Song of Solomon.  Are you concerned with social justice?  Try Isaiah, Jeremiah, Malachi, Luke’s gospel, John Chrysostom, Martin Luther King Jr., or Mother Theresa.  Do you have a penchant for ritual and structure? Look at the book of Hebrews, the Didache, the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, and large portions of the Orthodox and Catholic traditions.  Are you philosophically minded?  So were Paul, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Gregory of Nyssa, Thomas Aquinas, and Alvin Plantinga (to name a few).  Do you have existentialist leanings?  Try Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky and maybe even Augustine.  Do you struggle with the concept of hell?  So did the early Christian writers Origen and Evagrius (among others up to the present).  Are you a pacifist?  So was Menno Simons…and Jesus.

All of these writers and thinkers considered themselves Christians. All of them were “biblical” insofar as they read the Bible and used it as the foundation for their theology, philosophy and lives. All of them came to different conclusions on many issues. Ernst Käsemann, a respected German New Testament scholar from the 20th century, actually argued that the diversity of Christianity, rather than a monolithic Christianity, is founded in the diversity of the New Testament itself.

So here is my two-part invitation:
(1) If you are reading this and are not a Christian, I invite you to reconsider your definition of Christianity.  Have you had negative experiences with a group of Christians that left a bad taste in your mouth?  So have I…but Christianity is a wide and deep river or, to switch to a biblical metaphor, a large and diverse body.  It might help to remember that any Christian or Christian group is only one part while the head will always remain Jesus Christ.
(2) If you are reading this and are a Christian, I invite you to reconsider the way you define Christianity. Do you really, deep down, consider only your set of beliefs to be Christian or “biblical”?  You’re probably wrong.

Ben Edsall


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“It’s Elementary, My Dear Watson”

9 03 2011

Last month, IBM’s newest supercomputer named Watson succeeded in defeating two of the all-time most successful human contestants on the popular TV game show Jeopardy![1] For many, this latest man vs. machine battle brings to mind the epic 1997 chess match which pitted the world’s greatest chess champion, Gary Kasparov, against IBM’s then most impressive piece of machinery, Deep Blue. Kasparov lost that match, and now a 15-terabyte language-processing, answer-fetching machine named Watson has chalked up another victory for the machines, prompting some to speculate whether evil robots like Hal from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey will eventually turn on their masters and rule the world.[2]

Science fiction aside, Watson’s dual trouncing of Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter forces us to rethink what makes us different from the machines that can now beat us in chess and Jeopardy! On a very basic level, the machines we build are emblematic of the values and ideas that shape our culture. If we desire food and entertainment, we build ovens and televisions. If we value knowledge, we build a Watson. And like ovens and televisions, Watson owes its existence to its human creators, who in this case happen to be remarkably intelligent and innovative IBM engineers. Thus, while new technology may showcase a range of talents and abilities that meet or surpass what we humans can do ourselves, the very emergence of such technology provides a further glimpse into the inventive aspect of our own humanity.

But the question remains: How do we know when we’ve built something that’s good and not potentially destructive? If we choose not to unplug our machines in fear of a Terminator-styled Skynet coup d’état, how do we, as Ken Jennings humorously put it, “welcome our new computer overlords”?[3]

It’s hard to argue against the need for superior wisdom on the technological front. We have benefited enormously from the wave of technological advances begun during the Industrial Revolution, but we have also seen weapons of mass destruction and environmental ruin follow in its wake. As we forge ahead into the brave new world of Deep Blues and Watsons, it’s clear we need true wisdom in handling the technologies we create.

But this much-needed wisdom, I would argue, cannot be obtained unless we first ask some elementary questions of our own existence. We cannot anticipate how technologies will be used, whether they will be beneficial or destructive, unless we first know something about our own programming and the Inventor who created us. At the outset of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin writes, “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.”[3] Granted, Calvin didn’t envision the possibility of anything like Watson, Hal, or Skynet, but his remarks equally apply. If we don’t know who invented us or why we were invented, won’t it be all the more difficult to know what to invent or what to do with our inventions?

Paul McClure 

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFR3lOm_xhE

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwBmPiOmEGQ&feature=related

[3] Also see: Jennings, Ken. “My Puny Human Brain” in Slate Magazine. 16 Feb. 2011. http://www.slate.com/id/2284721/

[4] Calvin, John. The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Ed. John T. McNeill. Trans. By Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977), 35.


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