I’m very excited to read about this new series just begun by Richard Beck at Experimental Theology. I read Peanuts (Beck’s previous series) growing up but read C&H while in grad school (apparently, I was not as busy as Beck). In fact, I mention Bill Watterson in the dedication of my Ph.D. thesis and credit him with helping me get through the trying time of studying for and passing my prelims.
Archive for the 'theology' Category
I’ve been reading about Vedanta lately and thinking about it in terms of the Christian doctrine of total depravity and the (what I would call extreme) position of “no morality apart from God.”
According to my Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, the word for “sin” in the N.T. is derived from the word hamartano, which means “to miss the mark (and so not share in the prize).” The Greek-English Lexicon by Liddell and Scott also cites the following phrases as meanings for hamartano: “to miss the road”; “to miss one’s point”; “failed in hitting upon the thought”; “to be deprived of, lose.”
According to Vedanta, my individual self is none other than Brahman, the universal self. My “sin” is that I don’t realize this. I’ve missed the mark and so do not share in the prize of peace and tranquility during my life. I’ve missed the point. I’ve failed to hit upon this thought and understand it fully. In other words, I’ve sinned. I was born in this sinful state because from birth, I’ve not realized what I really am. In a way, according to Vedanta, I am totally depraved (at least as far as the doctrine relates to being born a sinner) but my punishment is merely the hell of eternal rebirth into a suffering life rather than the Hell of eternal teeth gnashing in the Lake of Fire.
But then there’s the “no morality apart from God” crowd. (And by “God” they, of course, mean “their God”.) “Look at the Nazis!” they say while shutting their eyes to Gandhi, Siddhartha, &c. Anyway, I see a grave danger in the combination of these two ideas. If I am a) born a total sinner and b) have no moral compass apart from God then the only conclusion is that there is absolutely nothing preventing me from committing every heinous, despicable, detestable act imaginable. Can you see how this attitude colors — or perhaps more precisely, discolors — one’s view of the world? No longer do you see people; you see potential murderers and rapists.
I have personally felt the effect of this attitude. Someone very close to me accused me of doing something that someone else did. I shall not go into details but let’s just say that it was more along the lines of emotionally damaging than physically. There was no reason to believe that it was I who did this act. I had never done anything even remotely like it; never hinted that I would do such a thing. It was totally out of character for me. Again, not wanting to go into details, there were several other circumstances and pieces of evidence that would have pointed away from me as the perpetrator. But this person was absolutely convinced that it was I. They went to their pastor for guidance on what to do about it. They even threatened me with legal action if I did it again. In their mind, I was a sinner without God and so there was nothing I would not do. I had no moral compass and so it was perfectly reasonable to conclude that I did it. Needless to say, that accusation caused more than a little tension in the relationship.
I am no expert in Vedanta, but I don’t see the same reaction from “believers” toward “sinners” as with some Christians. Reading people like Alan Watts who seem to agree with the Vedanta viewpoint, there seems to be more tolerance of those who don’t understand the way things really are. These poor souls are not evil, merely deluded. And it is realized that forcing reality down their throats will not make them see it any more quickly. Which reminds me of a quote from Carl Jung (of course, I cannot find it at the moment) which says that people with faith should be more understanding of people without faith for having faith is easier. (I’ll add an update to this post when I find the exact quote).
A quote from Chris at The Normal Christian Life who references a Parchment and Pen post. (This P&P post is very honest and commendable. I was not aware of this blog before, but it’s on my list now. But, I have to ask: what is it with “orthodox” Christians and U2??? I don’t get it. I mean, sure, they are good, but come on!) Anyway, the quote:
Oh! I long for a humble approach to theology, one that does not smack of having a corner on the truth, one that teaches Christians rather than validating a doctrinal statement or “my position.” Such a humble approach just might encourage Christians to be excited about learning the truth.
Amen, Chris! When it comes to God, it’s amazing how many people have the attitude that “I may not know everything there is about God but I know enough to know absolutely that you are absolutely wrong!” It’s absurd! And if they didn’t take themselves so darn seriously, it would be laughable.
Because that’s the theologian that ranked highest when I took the quiz. I think my Father would be somewhat happy that Calvin ranked in the top three. I have no idea who Finney was — I’ll have to do a little research.
I’m with James, however, in that I wanted to answer some of the questions “both/and” but also “neither so give me a N/A button.” Also, some were ill-posed or assumed a “fact” with which I disagree so there was no good answer.
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You scored as Martin LutherThe daddy of the Reformation. You are opposed to any Catholic ideas of works-salvation and see the scriptures as being primarily authoritative.
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One of my daughter’s favorite movies is The Incredibles. Since I work at home and watch her most of the time, it’s very convenient that I, too, enjoy this movie because we watch it over and over and over. I’ve started paying attention to some of the dialog and there are some very good lines. One is when Helen Parr, aka Elastigirl, visits Edna to see the new supersuits she made. Helen is unaware of everything which precipitated Edna’s making the suits and so is totally lost as Edna starts talking about them. Edna then says:
Yes, words are useless! Gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble. Too much of it, darling. Too much. That is why I show you my work. That is why you are here.
Thomas Merton, talks about the same thing in Echoing Silence:
True communication on the deepest level is more than a simple sharing of ideas, of conceptual knowledge, or formulated truth. The kind of communication that is necessary on this deep level must also be “communion” beyond the level of words, a communion in authentic experience which is shared not only on a “preverbal” level but also on a “post-verbal” level.
The “preverbal” level is that of the unspoken and indefinable “preparation,” “the predisposition” of the mind and heart, necessary for all “monastic” experience whatever.
Now, perhaps I’m stretching the point, but I would consider some religious experiences — the Eucharist, for example — to be “monastic” experiences since these are reflective, contemplative, personal, yet shared and participatory. Merton continues (with emphasis added):
This demands among other things a “freedom from automatisms and routines,” and candid liberation from external social dictates, from conventions, limitations, and mechanisms which restrict understanding and inhibit experience of the new, the unexpected. The monk who is to communicate on the level that interests us here must be not merely a punctilious observer of external traditions, but a living example of traditional and interior realization. He must be wide open to life and to new experience because he has fully utilized his own tradition and gone beyond it. This will permit him to meet a [disciple] of another, apparently remote and alien tradition, and find a common ground of verbal understanding with him. The “post-verbal” level will then, at least ideally, be that on which they both meet beyond their own words and their own understanding in the silence of an ultimate experience which might conceivably not have occurred if they had not met and spoken. This I would call “communion.” I think it is something that the deepest ground of our being cries out for, and it is something for which a lifetime of striving would not be enough.
Language is limiting. Language is controlling. Edna was unable to describe to Helen the experience and wonder of making the supersuits because there was no common ground of understanding. Helen might as well have been talking a different language altogether. Her biases and assumptions did not allow her to understand. It didn’t fit into her mental model of the world. But that does not mean that Edna’s experiences were invalid or wrong or false. There was no language that could bridge the two world-views. But the experience itself could.
And this is exactly where the trouble lies in religions. Looking at the words, it may seem, for example, Islam and Christianity are mutually exclusive. And so we use these incompatible words as dividers between the two. We demand that they say the right words about their experiences of their God. That they describe their God with just the right adjectives — the same adjectives that we use to describe our God: “God cannot be God unless God is a Triune God, eternally existing in three persons …” Only then, is their experience of their God “correct.” Furthermore, if they don’t use the correct verbiage then they are heretics and eternally damned and sometimes worse.
But let’s take the very trite example of two people witnessing an event taking place in this physical world. You will get different stories, different explanations, different emphasis. In short, incompatible, mutually exclusive words. In fact, this very idea is often used to defend the Gospels. Just look at the resurrection story and see how many “different” accounts there are and how these “different” accounts for merged.
So, if we cannot agree on the words to describe an event in this physical world, how much less can we agree on the words to describe the ineffable, numinous experience of God?? And how can we hold others at fault for using their own words which make sense to them but not us? The key is to go beyond our own traditions and meet in non-verbal communion.
Thomas Merton, again, from Zen and the Birds of Appetite:
The best we can say is that in certain religions, Buddhism for instance, the philosophical or religious framework is of a kind that can more easily be discarded, because it has in itself a built-in “ejector,” so to speak, by which the meditator is at a certain point flung out from the conceptual apparatus into the Void. It is possible for a Zen Master to say nonchalantly to his disciple, “If you meet the Buddha, kill him!” But in Christian mysticism the question whether or not the mystic can get along without the human “form” (Gestalt) or the sacred Humanity of Christ is still hotly debated, with the majority opinion definitely maintaining the necessity for the Christ of faith to be present as ikon at the center of Christian contemplation. Here again, the question is confused by the failure to distinguish between the objective theology of Christian experience and the actual psychological facts of Christian mysticism in certain cases. And then one must ask, at what point do the abstract demands of theory take precedence over the psychological facts of experience? Or, to what extent does the theology of a theologian without experience claim to interpret correctly the “experienced theology” of the mystic who is perhaps not able to articulate the meaning of his experience in a satisfactory way?
Everyone espousing a particular theology needs to have a way to distinguish those who believe the same from those who don’t. For the mystic, there is a certain language that is shared which makes no sense to outsiders. For the “theologian without experience” the theology must take on a rigid belief system which must be intellectual since there is no experiential basis. This external theology then requires adherence to sacraments, creeds, and behaviors. This is precisely why mystics have been questionable, at best, and often outcasts. The two theologies have nothing in common and there is a one-way path of communication. The mystic can interpret the other theology in terms of her experiences and thereby gain from participating in the sacraments, creeds, and behaviors. But there is no such understanding going the other direction. The non-experiencing theologian cannot understand the mystic’s theology any more than he can understand a joke told in a foreign language. Therefore, he has no ruler by which to measure the mystical theology’s closeness to his own. The easiest thing to do is condemn her.
And a little later …
On the other hand, let us repeat that we must not neglect the great importance of experience in Christianity. But Christian experience always has a special modality, due to the fact that it is inseparable from the mystery of Christ and the collective life of the Church, the Body of Christ. To experience the mystery of Christ mystically or otherwise is always to transcend the merely individual psychological level and to “experience theologically with the Church” (sentire cum Ecclesia). In other words, this experience must always be in some way reducible to a theological form that can be shared by the rest of the Church or that shows that it is a sharing of what the rest of the Church experiences. There is therefore in the recording of Christian experiences a natural tendency to set them down in language and symbols that are easily accessible to other Christians. This may perhaps sometimes mean an unconscious translation of the inexpressible into familiar symbols that are always at hand ready for immediate use.
Two things for me here but the second will be the subject of its own post. First is the idea that since “experience must always be … reducible to a theological form that can be shared” then there is “a natural tendency to set them down in language and symbols that are easily accessible to other Christians.”
I agree that if you are going to share experience with everyone then it must be reduced down to something concrete that can be passed around. And this is somewhat of a problem for me because by solidifying an experience, you lose so much and gain so little because it’s impossible for someone to partake in your experience who has not had the same experience (or similar) herself. Just imagine trying to share the experience of the color red with someone who has been blind since birth.
But making it “easily accessible” is the real problem for me. If it’s easy then it’s not so precious. I’ve talked on this topic before but I’m coming to realize that this is one of the bigger “issues” I take with Evangelical and Fundamental Christianity. (I hesitate using such adjectives as I know there is a wide range of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists and what I’m saying does not apply to everyone. What I really mean to do is describe the type of Christianity/Christian I am referring to by my description. The old “if the shoe fits …” and it’s up to you to decide if I’m referring to you or not.) But back on point. “Easily accessible” requires a formula. It does not allow for differing experiences of the same thing where these experiences are not trivially reconciled. Everyone must follow the formula or risk being labeled as a heretic.
This leads to legalism and fanaticism, and lends itself extremely well to hypocrisy. As long as you appear to be following the formula, toeing the line, then you are in the right. If you deviate from the formula, it is obvious and are a prime candidate for rebuke or retaliation from those in the right. Worse still, those who only appear to be correct are the ones who most vehemently require absolute compliance from the rest of us for it somehow alleviates the self doubt they secretly harbor. It’s their shadow being projected on others.
It is in such a legalistic context that the sacred symbols of our experience of Christ become the battle grounds of theologians who cannot admit the validity of formulae different from their own. The precise meaning and interpretation of the sacraments, for example, overshadow the experience and actually insulate the Christian from the full experience of Christ. The focus is so strongly fixated on the external details that the experience itself is lost. Whether the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus or whether they represent the body and blood or whatever should be a distant second in importance to the experience itself of partaking in the death and resurrection of The Christ.
Furthermore, the “easily accessible” formula not only insulates but actually works to prevent the experience because the experiencer has outside constraints on how the experience is to be realized. What one does and how one thinks is dictated by the formula and so one is not free to experience the sacraments, for example, apart from the well-defined, specific, ritual set down by the theologians. It’s like painting by number where you are told exactly what color to use where. That’s not really painting at all. There’s no feeling in it. There’s no connection with the work. There’s no real experience of painting.
The second point is the “set them down in language and symbols” part. Merton has an excellent passage on how we use language which is germane to this point and will be posted later.
Thomas Merton from Zen and the Birds of Appetite:
At the same time, Christian experience itself will be profoundly affected by the idea of revelation that the Christian himself will entertain. For example, if revelation is regarded simply as a system of truths about God and an explanation of how the universe came into existence, what will eventually happen to it, what is the purpose of Christian life, what are its moral norms, what will be the rewards of the virtuous, and so on, then Christianity is in effect reduced to a world view, at times a religious philosophy and little more, sustained by a more or less elaborate cult, by a moral discipline and a strict code of Law. Experience of the inner meaning of Christian revelation will necessarily be distorted and diminished in such a theological setting. What will such experience be? Not so much a living theological experience of the presence of God in the world and in mankind through the mystery of Christ, but rather a sense of security in one’s own correctness: a feeling of confidence that one has been saved, a confidence which is based on the reflex awareness that one holds the correct view of the creation and purpose of the world and that one’s behavior is of a kind to be rewarded in the next life. Or, perhaps, since few can attain this level of self-assurance, then the Christian experience becomes one of anxious hope—a struggle with occasional doubt of the “right answers,” a painful and constant effort to meet the severe demands of morality and law, and a somewhat desperate recourse to the sacraments which are there to help the weak who must constantly fall and rise again.
Is this Christian Fundamentalism or what! The Bible is “absolute truth” and we should be most concerned with who’s getting it right and who’s getting it wrong. Jesus is coming back any day now so screw the environment. Morality is dictated by God in the Bible and everyone, regardless of religious beliefs, should follow this moral “law.” Christians should focus on what they’ll get in heaven. The more they are persecuted on earth the greater their reward. This gives them a “license” to do whatever they want because they perceive all persecution (even that inflicted on them for being just plain jerks) as building up rewards in the hereafter. The Fundamentalist’s Christianity is a world view and nothing more. It is legalism at it’s finest.
As Merton says, “experience of the inner meaning of Christian revelation will necessarily be distorted and diminished.” Despite their bully tactics and overall hubris, you really must feel sorry for these poor souls. They totally miss the point yet insist they are the point. But this insistence comes at a price: as a Christian, they are told that they should have “a feeling of confidence that one has been saved, a confidence which is based on the reflex awareness that one holds the correct view of the creation and purpose of the world and that one’s behavior is of a kind to be rewarded in the next life.” Yet, many cannot “attain this level of self-assurance” and it is precisely because it is out of their reach that they put on the show of confidence.
The code of conduct for the Fundamentalist is a bar set too high for it dictates not only overt actions but covert thoughts and motives which are damn near impossible to control yet extremely easy to fake. They truly are like the child who lashes out at others to compensate, in some futile way, for the abuse they receive at home. The Fundamentalist cannot live up to expectations and so points out others’ flaws to draw attention away from themselves.
And because they are focused on all this finger pointing and name calling, they miss the “living theological experience of the presence of God in the world and in mankind through the mystery of Christ.” God is too busy inflicting punishment on the sinners to be present in the world. Christ is not a mystery to them because they have him totally figured out and are able to weed out sinner from saint with their “x-ray” vision (which really doesn’t penetrate much past a person’s hair, tie, and Bible translation).
I recently finished Thomas Merton’s Zen and the Birds of Appetite. Extremely highly recommended. Especially good was his introduction to Wu’s A Christian Look at Zen. Merton must have been a psychic because he addresses so many questions that I’m asking but he definitely is biased towards Christianity. Although I think that last statement may stem from my not having experienced Christianity as he did. He uses phrases like “mystery of Christ” and “word of the Cross” and I can’t help but wonder how deeply he felt these and how shallow the words are for me. But in any case, Merton wrote …
It cannot be repeated too often: in understanding Buddhism it would be a great mistake to concentrate on the “doctrine,” the formulated philosophy of life, and to neglect the experience, which is absolutely essential, the very heart of Buddhism. This is in a sense the exact opposite of the situation in Christianity. For Christianity begins with revelation. Though it would be misleading to classify this revelation simple as a “doctrine” and an “explanation” (it is far more than that—the revelation of God Himself in the mystery of Christ) it is nevertheless communicated to us in words, in statements, and everything depends on the believer’s accepting the truth of these statements.
Therefore Christianity has always been profoundly concerned with these statements: with the accuracy of their transmission from the original sources, with the precise understanding of their exact meaning, with the elimination and indeed the condemnation of false interpretations. At times this concern has been exaggerated almost to the point of an obsession, accompanied by arbitrary and fanatical insistence on hairsplitting distinctions and the purest niceties of theological detail.
This obsession with doctrinal formulas, juridical order and ritual exactitude has often made people forget that the heart of Catholicism, too, is a living experience of unity in Christ which far transcends all conceptual formulations. What too often has been overlooked, in consequence, is that Catholicism is the taste and experience of eternal life: “We announce to the you the eternal life which was with the Father and has appeared to us. What we have seen and have heard we announce to you, in order that you also may have fellowship with us and that our fellowship may be with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.” (I John 1:2-3) Too often the Catholic has imagined himself obliged to stop short at a mere correct and external belief expressed in good moral behavior, instead of entering fully into the life of hope and love consummated by union with the invisible God “in Christ and in the Spirit,” thus fully sharing in the Divine Nature. (Ephesians 2:18, 2 Peter 1:4, Col. 1:9-17, I John 4:12)
Some of the blogs I pay attention to have been spending a lot of time on points of theology that I just can’t see the relevance of. Whether infant baptism is good/bad/indifferent. The “mechanics” of how Jesus’ death saves. Whether homosexuality is good/bad/indifferent. I don’t understand why people would spend so much time on these “trivial” theological points when they are so far from the point. To me, the only thing theology like that does is divide. The only result of saying “infant baptism is necessary and is proper and does such and such for the child and here are a bunch of verses that prove my point” is that you separate yourself from other Christians who do not hold the same view. When I was growing up in an IFCA church (that’s Independent Fundamental Churches of America), I truly thought that all Lutherans, all Episcopalians, all Catholics, most Methodists, some Presbyterians were going to hell. In sixth grade, I told a classmate who was Catholic that he was not a Christian. All based on differing points of theology.
Too many Christians have forgotten that Christianity is “a living experience of unity in Christ which far transcends all conceptual formulations.” Being a Christian has been reduced to a series of bulleted points that you must initial to show that you claim to believe them. And you have to learn to defend these points with chapter and verse so that you can persuade all heretics you may meet. This is what “defending your faith” has become — quibbling over insignificant points of theology.
Christianity should be the “entering fully into the life of hope and love consummated by union with the invisible God.” How can that be reduced to theology? It’s an experience that must be experienced first hand. It can’t be talked about and reduced to formulas. It’s like smelling a rose, watching a sunset, having an orgasm. You just have to experience it yourself or else you have absolutely no idea what it’s all about.
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