fidesquaerens

The other day at FB, Dan Fincke posted a quote that has stuck with me. Specifically:

"Dear liberal, enlightened Christian: I'm not lumping you in with fundies – you are. Get a new name and new holy book to selectively cite." (Matt Dillahaunty)

This is actually a topic I've thought about a lot myself, and I hinted at it in my post on gender last night. While I definitely consider myself a Christian, I get the sense a lot of times that I don't practice Christianity the way a lot of people do around here. "Here" to my mind is the United States, particularly the various places I've lived as an adult (rural NC, in a mid-sized NC city, in Cleveland, OH, and now in NYC). I guess we should also include the various the various online outlets where I discuss religion, most notably Sojourners, Christianity Today, and Fred Clarke's blog over at Patheos. (I also read Aish.com and for years Brad Hirschfield was a big influence as well, but as those are Jewish groups and I'm talking about Christianity here, I suppose that's not all that relevant.)

Anyway, the Christianity of my experience really can be broken down into two groups. First, there are the fundamentalists. Certainty and even simplicity here is the key; the whole movement started with revivals urging people to get back to basics, IIRC. I'm not a big fan of fundamentalism, so much so that I have a hard time giving a sympathetic description of them. I know that I associate them with the "God said it, that settles it" approach to theology. More distinctive are the social and ethical positions like the idea that women and men should fulfill different roles in society, that all extramarital sex (and by extension, homosexuality, contraception, and sex education) is deeply immoral, and that life begins at conception. There are also distinctive political positions, like the idea that America should be distinctly Christian and that Israel must be supported.

As I said, I'm sure someone could give a more sympathetic description here. I don't mean to beat up on fundamentalists. But if you follow this blog or know me at all, it should probably be fairly obvious why I'm not one.

When people don't just identify Christian as fundamentalist (which doesn't happen often enough), they may have in mind what Matt calls "liberal enlightened Christians." Sojourners is a great example of one such group. Politically, the focus is more on environmental issues, social justice, and immigration reform. And the approach tends to differ as well. Liberal Christians are usually more focused on relationships and grassroots work than passing big laws. Those interested in LGBT activism are probably the big exception. Some of them hold similar views to fundamental Christians (like with abortion – many are very anti-abortion, but prefer to work to avoid pregnancy through contraception and to make adoption a feasibly option, rather than focusing on making abortion illegal.

I'm mostly on board with their social/political project. The theology, on the other hand, always rubs me the wrong way. Matt's quote is right on that much; many liberal Christians will keep their Bible interpretations vague, along the lines of "God is love so how can God be against two adults loving each other?" Now, as it happens I believe the Bible doesn't condemn what we moderns consider homosexuality. It does teach against specific temple practices that are more akin to sexual slavery than anything, But this isn't something good theology should just brush over by ignoring passages fundies point to to explain why homosexuality is an abomination. Similarly for other issues, like global warming and immigration reform; the connection to the Bible is often tenuous and general at best.

I'm not a conservative in the sense used in the sense American political pundits mean – a Republican or a Tea Partier or whatever. But I am enough of a traditionalist that I don't just want to throw out the history and writings and culture of a certain religious tradition. I think living with those things and making sense of them is a good thing (and I know everyone here won't agree with me on that point). It's like Aristotle's aporiai, the puzzles between intuitions and experiences that seem to contradict each other. Religion, done right, forces people to confront the mystery. Both fundamentalism and liberal Christianity fail here because just ignore those factoids that lead us to the puzzle rather than exalting in it.

In light of that I find myself wondering, should I call myself a Christian? Why would I want to, when I reject so strongly most of the associations people have when they hear the word "Christian"? Because I'm definitely not a fundamentalist, but neither am ever going to match what people expect from a liberal Christian. Because, you know, I'm not that either.

But back to Matt's basic point. He suggests that liberal Christians (or those who reject fundamentalism even if they don't embrace liberal Christianity) have only ourselves to blame for being lumped in with fundamentalism, because we insist on calling ourselves names. That's not really fair, though, because it lets fundamentlaism define Christianity. Say I was Irish-American and was frustrated by the way my millennia-old culture got boiled down to leprechauns and Guinness – would you say I was wrong to insist that "Irish" meant more than that? Just because something is the most obvious association a lot of people have, that doesn't mean it's the right one.

I had a similar reaction after Anne Rice "quit" Christianity two years ago. She famously said:

"In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen."

At the time, I found myself agreeing with everything she said, right up until that last sentence. I'd add one more thing, though: I refuse to let the fundamentalist define Christianity as being any of those things. Christianity is not anti-feminist at heart; anti-feminists twist it and use it to support it. And on down the list. Explaining why would take a post – probably multiple posts – on each point. But here's the thing: if you say Christianity is these things, then you're giving away the game before that conversation has ever happened.

That's reason #1 why I won't ever stop calling myself a Christian. Because, contrary to what you hear in the news, the bishops protesting birth control mandates and the Baptists saying we should round up all the gays and put them behind electric fences aren't all Christianity has to offer.

And while we're at it: simply because I say the world wasn't created in seven days or that the Leviticus verse calling "a man lying with a man" an abomination doesn't mean what fundamentalists say it means doesn't make mean I'm reading selectively. I'm not ignoring those passages; I'm simply using a different hermeneutic. Simply because my reading of the Bible is more consistent with liberalism and secularism than the fundamentalist's reading, that doesn't mean my position is watered down or inauthentic. The "real" Christianity isn't necessarily the one that contrasts best with secular humanism, as nice as that might be.

Reason #2 why I insist on calling myself a Christian is related to what I said a few days ago on my post looking at why atheists should want smart theists. I think it's in everyone's best interests to have an intellectually sophisticated faith. And not just intellectually sophisticated; nuanced full stop. Claiming, as Anne Rice did, that Christianity is (say) anti-science offers people a stark choice: your God or your microscopes.

That's a false choice, but even if it wasn't, I'm not sure we'll like the results of forcing it onto people. It's simple psychology: people are reluctant to give up something they have and they like, even for something you tell them is better, because that other thing simply doesn't seem "real" yet.

If you want to get them to "evolve already" (as I heard lots of non-religious people say in response to Obama's statements that his views on gay marriage were evolving), you get them to ask the question: can I be for LGBT equality and still hold on to my other beliefs that I'm committed to? You don't ask them to change all those beliefs at once, because it's too scary for them, and even more important, sincere moral change is a process of evolution. You can't change all your beliefs at once, or quickly, if you want the person to have thought through and really accepted those beliefs.

If Christianity = fundamentalism then the conversation stops there. But if Christianity can be something more nuanced, then you have a much better chance to get your average pew-sitter to do some (if I can be excused the religious phrase) serious soul-searching that leads to real character growth.

So with all respect to Mr. Dillahaunty, he's wrong here. Fundamentalists don't get to unilaterally decide what it means to be a Christian, nor do any other group. It's an open question that's been going on since at least the days of Peter and Paul – and I highly suspect it will continue on until Christ returns or the sun burns out, whichever ultimate ending you prefer.

That's not a bad thing, btw. 

There are at least two broad kinds of avowed atheists who take two distinct kinds of stances on the status of their belief. One is the atheist in the widest possible sense-one who claims to passively lack any belief in any gods by simply refraining from believing in them rather than outright making a metaphysical claim that "gods do not exist." The other broad kind of avowed atheist also lacks belief in all gods but is willing to say she either disbelieves in gods or believes (or even knows) based on the preponderance of evidence that there are no gods.

Dan then goes on to develop what you might call a functional test for these kinds of atheism. Essentially, if you act like these groups, so that there is no practical difference between you and them, it may make sense to call you an atheist. Or conversely, if an atheist acts like a theist even while claiming not to believe in a god, that person can perhaps be classified as an atheist. This is the heart of Dan's post, actually, and he leaves it open-ended: should we classify someone as X if their actions make them indistinguishable from other X-ers, even if the person swears up and down that she's a not-X?

Dan gives two examples to help us think about this. First, there's the problem of grief. Dan asks, "To what extent do [the theists'] normal fears of death and deep mourning of lost ones they ostensibly believe in heaven betray functional disbelief in heaven?" Basically, as I understand him, Dan's saying that if you believe in an afterlife of some kind you shouldn't be sorry that a loved one has gone on to it, or be afraid of dying yourself. The fact that the theist does feel these things proves that she isn't really convinced there's an afterlife after all, Dan suggests. (He also offers a similar analysis of covert theists, that is, people who claim to be atheists but when in distress wonder whether they should pray.

Now, I have some problems with this account. First of all, I don't agree with Dan's point that it's inconsistent to believe in an afterlife and still grieve the death of a loved one or fear your own death. Essentially I think that bodily life is a good thing cut short by an early death, and that you don't gain anything by going on to any kind of an afterlife sooner rather than later. So whether or not it's wrong to believe in heaven and hell or their various analogs in any other religion, there's not really anything inconsistent in those two beliefs. I also have my doubts about functional definitions because you can get the same result with two very different beliefs (for example, someone who thinks she should turn in a found wallet to the police and acts on that belief, versus someone who thinks she should keep the wallet but lacks the strength of character to act on that belief).

But those points aside, there's a really interesting issue in the distinction Dan draws between these two types of atheists. As I understand it - and keep in mind, this is the pre-coffee Marta, which shall be purchased and consumed on my way to campus in a bit - Dan is talking about people in both cases who have a specific concept of a god and we don't think anyone meets that definition. One type ­rejects the idea that any of the usual (or unusual, for that matter) candidate is in fact a god; the other makes the positive claim that "no gods exist." But in both cases, you have an idea of what would constitute a god, and you're taking a position that nothing actually meets that definition.

The trouble is, as soon as you have an idea in mind, I'd say you're already letting God exist in a sense. This is Anselm's basic point: to even talk about something (including God) meaningfully, you have to know what it is you're talking about, but to do that you have to have an object of thought. At a minimum a god "exists" inside your mind even if it doesn't exist anywhere else. The thought is that it's wrong at that point to say "There is no God" unless you're very careful to talk about the concepts as what other people mean by them rather than ideas you've internalized.

Anselm explains the distinction here through the painter analogy:

For, it is one thing for an object to be in the understanding, and another to understand that the object exists. When a painter first conceives of what he will afterwards perform, he has it in his understanding, but he does not yet understand it to be, because he has not yet performed it. But after he has made the painting, he both has it in his understanding, and he understands that it exists, because he has made it.

Anselm has just said that whenever we hear or say a word – if proper communication is occurring – we must know what we're talking about, implying that we have the idea in mind. We can disagree about whether there's anything in the world beyond our mind, sure, just like the painter can wonder whether the idea he has in his mind actually corresponds with an idea he has in mind or whether it's just an object of thought at that point; but it's an object of thought, whatever else it might be.

The way around this is that if you're going to say the concept of God is ill-formed. Basically, if you think it's a concept that involves a contradiction, so it's theoretically impossible that anything meets the definition (as opposed to it being possible but as it works out no one actually meets the definition), then you aren't communicating in the normal way. When you say "God" it doesn't describe a concept you have in your mind. Rather, you're using it in a way my adviser calls parasitically: you're taking on someone else's concept and using it on their terms, but you're not really saying it makes sense to you. So if you think (e.g.) God can't create a rock so big He couldn't lift it so nothing could be omnipotent, you're likely to say that any conception of a god who has the characteristic of omnipotence isn't even possible. Meaning you can't have Him as an object of thought, though you could still talk about other people's (faulty) conceptions of Him.

I personally think this distinction is helpful toward making sense of language. Consider the statements (a) "Legolas is the Prince of Ithilien" and (b) "William is the prince of England." (b) is objectively true since there's an individual named William and, yes, he does hold that title. (a) turns out to be false but for entirely different reasons. There is a fictional character called Legolas, and he is a prince, but he's not the prince of Ithilien. However, none of this depends on the objective reality; it's just a set of fictions developed by an author and known by fans of the book. The statement is false because if you denied any of the claims I listed above you wouldn't be describing the situation depicted in the book. But it's not like we can consult the official records of Ithilien and fail to find Legolas listed among them. There's a different standard of truth; indeed, a different concept of what it means to be true is at work. Similarly, a statement that works with a contradictory concept wouldn't be true or false in the same way either of these are; if in fact you could say true or false apply at all.

None of this is intended as a criticism of Dan's position, btw. As I said this is Marta pre-coffee (soon to be rectified), and it's possible I've misunderstood what Dan was getting at with his post. But even if I am misreading him, I do think it's useful to distinguish between the atheist who simply doesn't believe anything in the world satisfies the definition of God, versus someone who says the concept itself is nonsense. The kind of evidence we'd expect in the two cases would be completely different.

Now off to get my java-fix. Feel free to tell me what you think of all this in the comments.

That post I made on Friday was basically about utility: the fact that the quickest, easiest, and surest way to change someone's beliefs was to use their more-established beliefs to criticize newer ones. Of course that's not always possible, and that's when you should turn to a more thorough critique. But in the course of his follow-up reply (which, again, I thank him for), Dan argued that we shouldn't do anything to increase peoples' reliance on theology. In fact, he compared theology to an idea from Plato's Republic: the "noble lie."

Dan gives a thorough summary of this concept, and I really encourage you to read this if you haven't already. I'll just stick to the high notes. In the Republic, Plato describes what he considers to be a perfectly-just city (in many ways an allegory for human nature), in which the philosopher-kings are in charge of governing. This is similar to a meritocracy, but not quite. There aren't any privileged positions that go to the best qualified. Rather, each individual goes to the role they are best suited for, and thy are happiest (and most fulfilled) wherever they are.

Humans are naturally jealous of what they don't have. The philosopher-king, being wise, won't envy the farmer (not because his current position is better but because he knows it's most appropriate to him). But how can we convince the farmer of this? To convince him of the truth rationally, you would have to turn him into a philosopher, which he's not well-suited for. But Plato also isn't too keen to let the farmer make his own decisions without having wisdom. He needs a way to make the farmer content in his station without forcing him to become something he's not. For this, Plato uses the idea of a noble lie.

Plato suggests the philosopher-kings tell the masses along these lines: when the gods created man they gave some men golden souls, others silver ones, and others bronze ones. These different qualities in effect create three different sub-species, all of which excel at different things. This does not set up a genetic caste (sons of farmers could have gold souls, and would be identified and trained as philosophers; or vice versa), nor is it a judgmental claim (golden souls are not better than bronze ones, just different). This story is a lie since the philosopher-kings know souls aren't made out of metal. But it is a lie with a truth at its core. It's a simple way for the non-philosophers to understand they are uniquely suited for their work (which is true), without them having to learn philosophical concepts like telos and essential nature.

Dan argues we shouldn't tell lies, even noble ones, for several reasons. Because this post is going to be long as it is, I'm going to focus on just one of those reasons. I may come back and discuss the other sin separate posts, time allowing, because Dan really did give me a lot to chew on. The specific criticism of noble-lying I want to discuss is this:

It intrinsically damages the flourishing of the average person to actively thwart her abilities to think for herself as much as possible and to be autonomous as possible and the truly wisest who truly loved the good would value the potential autonomy and wisdom of even ordinary people, even at the risk of arrogance and incorrigibility among other ordinary people. ("A Critique of Noble Lies," §2)

Now, autonomy has a long history in German philosophy, which is I believe Dan's specialty. It's certainly far from mine (I am much more of an Aristotelian and a medievalist). That means there's a real possibility I will have misunderstood what he means here, but as I understand it, autonomy is basically freedom of choice. What Dan is saying is that the ability to choose well is a big part of what it means to be a fully flourishing human being, and so if someone is a good ruler trying to promote human flourishing, he will naturally want people to have that choice, as much as possible. So this ruler will "risk [the] arrogance and incorrigibility among the ordinary people," in an attempt to encourage them to become more reflective.

I'm sympathetic to Dan's view. As a teacher I encounter some students who Plato would probably describe as bronze- and silver-souled. I have some gold-souled ones, too, but also people who would not study philosophy even if they thought it would get them a job on graduating. And I feel driven to push them to become as reflecting and as philosophical as they can, even in light of their lack of interest. I don't feel justified to lie to them, to cheat them of the chance to make choices. But I also recognize two cases where people can't be autonomous - where we rightly restrict peoples' choice. I think the noble lie is appropriate in at least the second of these choices.

First, there's the people who have made a choice in the past that limits their future choices. Sometimes those choices are good, sometimes not. For example, you may have heard of Rose Marie Belforti, the town clerk in Cayuga Co., NY, who has refused to register same-sex couples since New York passed its gay marriage law. Most people (rightly IMO) think she is being derelict in her duty to carry out the law, and that she can't choose which laws to enforce. She made a choice to be town clerk, and now she can sacrifice the position or do the job, but she can't have it both ways. This isn't a limiting of autonomy, though. It's honoring it, since when we require someone to accept the consequences of their choices we treat them like someone capable of a true choice. (Incidentally, that's why Kant thought there were some crimes where people had to be executed; anything less would be an insult to their autonomy.)

The other case is trickier. Children are routinely denied their autonomy, nor are people new to some situation. My students are not able to decide whether or not philosophy is good for them until they have tried it. Similarly for calculus. That is why their core curriculum is set for them. Similarly a young child cannot set his bedtime or choose not to eat his sprouts because he doesn't het know what's really good for him; his parents do. The freshman's and the child's lack of maturity isn't there fault, it doesn't flow from some past choice.

By Dan's argument, we should be trying to help these people grow into their autonomy. Yet every year around this time, parents the world over tell one of the most common noble lies. (Parents, avert your children's eyes.) I'm talking about Santa Claus. Just like the philosopher-kings know our souls aren't made of metal, adults know there's no jolly fat man living at the North Pole. And just like the first noble lie had a true moral – that people had different natures and were suited to different kinds of work – the same is again true with Santa. It teaches kids that Christmas is a time for overcoming our selfish natures and being generous toward people they don't know. Kids being kids, they learn this lesson better through a model (true or false) than they would if their parents just told it to them directly. And I know that when I learned there was no Santa Claus, it softened the blow to learn there had been a grain of truth under it all.

Now, I can well imagine Dan would go along with this when it came to Santa, since kids haven't yet become autonomous. He could still argue back that adults have become autonomous, or should have, and it's the responsibility of the people in authority to help them along that path. It is. But these are really two separate issues, often but not always related. If the lie keeps the people being lied to from exercising their autonomy, it's obviously wrong. But that doesn't apply with the Santa Claus example. (And to be clear: it's not just chronological children who lack the capacity for autonomy. It's very easy to grow in age but not in wisdom.) But if a person doesn't have any autonomy to interfere with yet, I don't think the lie in itself is bad. It can be helpful or hurtful, depending on whether it encourages the person to grow.

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Now to the heart of the matter: is theology a noble lie? And if so, is it a permissible one? That's a fiendishly hard question to answer, because people use the word "theology" in lots of different ways. I've come up with at least three ways, and there may well be more. One of these approaches is clearly wrong, both by the standard I've described above and by the Bible's own lights. (Since I'm most familiar with Christianity, I'll speak of Christian history, the Bible, and so on, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if this thinking can be applied to other faiths as well.)

First, there's what I call static theology. This is probably the most common kind of theology in practice – it's what you see on display when someone says in a debate over (say) LGBT rights or abortion or feminism or whatever, that "you're not disagreeing with me, you're disagreeing with God." Under this approach, theology is a set of beliefs, usually the most commonsensical interpretation of a certain Bible verse, or the one that goes back in history the furthest. The problem is, even the Bible doesn't follow this model. Take the Sermon on the Mount, in particular the antitheses ("You have heard it say ____, but I tell you ____.") Those verses aren't saying the first interpretation is wrong, but that there is a second, less obvious interpretation that is true at the same time.

This static kind of theology can turn into a lie, quite easily. Biblical verses are misinterpreted or, more likely (and more troublingly), they are interpreted one way and the faithful deny that the interpretation can progress. But since our interpretations of the Bible do progress, the old views can easily turn into a lie. And since there's no challenging, nothing to strain against, there's no potential for growth. As I said, this is a common approach in practice, meaning a good proportion of the people filling up the pews approach the Bible this way. It's simpler – but in most cases it's also wrong. That's why I tend to fight against this approach to theology.

Then there's the dynamic model. This is the idea that theology consists of a group of beliefs, but those beliefs are always changing and are always imperfect. In a lot of ways this approach is similar to the idea that science is progressive. We describe DNA as strands of molecules that coil around each other and are connected by (IIRC) hydrogen molecules, and scientists operate as if that description is true. But it's always understood that the model could still be disproved, and the model will have to be revised.

Similarly, under the dynamic model theological beliefs are always open to revision. I say God is powerful because the Bible says so at various points. But what does power mean? What does knowledge mean for God? What does goodness mean? All of this can change, and we understand our beliefs more fully through a few methods. There's Aristotle's endoxic method, which is alive and well in the Methodist denomination I grew up in. That's largely due to the Wesleyan quadrilateral, which says among other things that revelation, tradition, reason, and experience do not contradict each other. When they do, we need to reexamine our interpretation, and maybe revise our first-glance interpretation of one of the elements. And that includes Scripture. Scripture itself isn't made false, but the way we read it can be.

The only way to really lie here (let alone lie justly) is to think you have a better handle on things than you really do. To think what you believe now is the end of the story – basically, to slide back into the static model. That may be a necessary lie (say, with children or the newly converted), but as soon as possible you get people to thinking about the "truth" like an approximation. There are still beliefs here, and those beliefs can be critiqued so bad ones are thrown out and good ones are built upon.

Finally, some people approach theology more as a process than a set of beliefs. I find myself increasingly drawn to this approach, though I'm still finding my way in it and am not sure I'm completely comfortable with it. It seems the height of hubris to think that something like God could be boiled down to easily-understood propositions, and I'm not sure to what extent our normal words should be applied to God. This approach would look a lot like what I called dynamic theology, only without the possibility of any beliefs ever being true.

I'm not sure how it could critique Scalia or his ilk, which is a major reason I'm only wetting my toes in this idea. It seems a lot like agnosticism that leans toward theism rather than agnosticism that leans toward atheism. I'm not against that in principle, though it does seem to lose a lot of the advantages of theism, But whatever else you could say about it, I think this much is clear: without any actual beliefs, or belief-like statements, it's impossible to lie.

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Having said all that, I can imagine Dan asking why we should bother with theology at all. That's a very different question than what we've been saying about noble lies, and it requires at least a new blog post if not a whole book to do it justice. (Something can avoid lying without it being useful.) But I will try for the ninety-second version, and if people are interested I will try to expand on this another time. Though it won't be easy – I've been trying to work out lately where I fit regarding theism, atheism, and all the varieties in between, and so I don't always have a pat answer to why I believe what I believe.

Anyway: ninety-second version. I know that I have a tendency toward being a "know it all." It goes with the territory of growing up a bookworm, and teaching has only encouraged that tendency. So I am likely to believe that I completely understand things, that there is nothing to know or relate to beyond my comprehension. Given that, I need what I call epistemic humility: the idea that I don't know it all. Having something I can't wrap my mind around completely is morally helpful. It also gives me something to struggle against, which I think encourages character growth.

As far as I can tell, reason hasn't been able to make it more or less likely that God exists, and (for various reasons that would take significantly longer than ninety seconds to explain) I think that where reason is silent, we are free to believe what we choose. Given my personality, I get real benefit from believing there is something external to myself that I need to struggle to make sense of. Theology is that struggle. I could perhaps find that struggle in philosophy, psychology, and the rest, but believing this struggle has an anchor I didn't create is helpful to me, so I keep believing until someone proves me wrong.

(That of course doesn't mean I'm not disgusted by the abuses of religion. I am. But I can reject bad religion without rejecting all of theology along with it.)