A.N. Wilson's Return to Belief

Read the very excellent entire piece here.

Excerpts from "Why I believe again"
A N Wilson

Published 02 April 2009, New Statesman

But religion, once the glow of conversion had worn off, was not a matter of argument alone. It involves the whole person. Therefore I was drawn, over and over again, to the disconcerting recognition that so very many of the people I had most admired and loved, either in life or in books, had been believers. Reading Louis Fischer’s Life of Mahatma Gandhi, and following it up with Gandhi’s own autobiography, The Story of My Experiments With Truth, I found it impossible not to realise that all life, all being, derives from God, as Gandhi gave his life to demonstrate. Of course, there are arguments that might make you doubt the love of God. But a life like Gandhi’s, which was focused on God so deeply, reminded me of all the human qualities that have to be denied if you embrace the bleak, muddled creed of a materialist atheist. It is a bit like trying to assert that music is an aberration, and that although Bach and Beethoven are very impressive, one is better off without a musical sense. Attractive and amusing as David Hume was, did he confront the complexities of human existence as deeply as his contemporary Samuel Johnson, and did I really find him as interesting?

...

Do materialists really think that language just “evolved”, like finches’ beaks, or have they simply never thought about the matter rationally? Where’s the evidence? How could it come about that human beings all agreed that particular grunts carried particular connotations? How could it have come about that groups of anthropoid apes developed the amazing morphological complexity of a single sentence, let alone the whole grammatical mystery which has engaged Chomsky and others in our lifetime and linguists for time out of mind? No, the existence of language is one of the many phenomena – of which love and music are the two strongest – which suggest that human beings are very much more than collections of meat. They convince me that we are spiritual beings, and that the religion of the incarnation, asserting that God made humanity in His image, and continually restores humanity in His image, is simply true. As a working blueprint for life, as a template against which to measure experience, it fits.

...

For a few years, I resisted the admission that my atheist-conversion experience had been a bit of middle-aged madness. I do not find it easy to articulate thoughts about religion. I remain the sort of person who turns off Thought for the Day when it comes on the radio. I am shy to admit that I have followed the advice given all those years ago by a wise archbishop to a bewildered young man: that moments of unbelief “don’t matter”, that if you return to a practice of the faith, faith will return.

When I think about atheist friends, including my father, they seem to me like people who have no ear for music, or who have never been in love. It is not that (as they believe) they have rumbled the tremendous fraud of religion – prophets do that in every generation. Rather, these unbelievers are simply missing out on something that is not difficult to grasp. Perhaps it is too obvious to understand; obvious, as lovers feel it was obvious that they should have come together, or obvious as the final resolution of a fugue.

...

I haven’t mentioned morality, but one thing that finally put the tin hat on any aspirations to be an unbeliever was writing a book about the Wagner family and Nazi Germany, and realising how utterly incoherent were Hitler’s neo-Darwinian ravings, and how potent was the opposition, much of it from Christians; paid for, not with clear intellectual victory, but in blood. Read Pastor Bonhoeffer’s book Ethics, and ask yourself what sort of mad world is created by those who think that ethics are a purely human construct. Think of Bonhoeffer’s serenity before he was hanged, even though he was in love and had everything to look forward to.

My departure from the Faith was like a conversion on the road to Damascus. My return was slow, hesitant, doubting. So it will always be; but I know I shall never make the same mistake again. Gilbert Ryle, with donnish absurdity, called God “a category mistake”. Yet the real category mistake made by atheists is not about God, but about human beings. Turn to the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge – “Read the first chapter of Genesis without prejudice and you will be convinced at once . . . ‘The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’.” And then Coleridge adds: “‘And man became a living soul.’ Materialism will never explain those last words.”

This piece is so excellent. I don't care about scoring points by noting which atheists have changed their minds. Rather, I am taken aback by the deeply emotional and honest depiction of a man who, learned and serious, has met intellectual issues with the devastating sting of what it means to be human. That God is difficult to comprehend is a given; that His love seems sometimes distant or gone is admitted; that He still provides and manifests Himself so perfectly to all who are willing to hear is the most wonderful and glorious truth of all. I aim constantly for a better understanding of God, His existence, His attributes, His nature, His truth, and do not generally look down upon science or the natural explanations given thereby. But perhaps there is a part of life itself, that part pricked by Wilson, which exposes so majestically the near-infinitely narrow scope of human understanding. Indeed, "we are spiritual beings, and...the religion of the incarnation, asserting that God made humanity in His image, and continually restores humanity in His image, is simply true."

Amen.

[All italics mine]

The Problem of Evil, Final

So I didn't really post many of my thoughts as I went, because it's time consuming. But here is the anti-climactic paper. It's so short I really can't get much into it, especially since in this context I have to talk about Descartes and his "solution" even though he is really addressing a pretty limited and narrow scope, as it pertained to his Meditation. Anyways... here it is:



"God either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or he is able and unwilling; or he is neither willing nor able, or he is both willing and able. If he is willing and is unable, he is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if he is able and unwilling, he is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if he is neither willing nor able he is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if he is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? or why does he not remove them?”1

Neither a new problem before the 1st Century, nor a forgotten one in the 21st, the problem of evil seems to be almost obviously understood. As Epicurus asked, how can evil and God be reconciled? That is, if we suppose there is a God who is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving, how can we account for the presence of evil in the world? What we typically mean by the problem of evil is that we see evil both moral and natural all around, and so to suppose that a wholly good and powerful God exists is to present a logical contradiction. If God can rid the world of evil (is omnipotent), and if God desires to get rid of evil (is omnibenevolent), how can it be that evil exists, other than to conclude that God does not?

Descartes understood the problem when it arose in his Fourth Meditation. As he sought to find that which was clear and distinct, he had to account for error. In other words, if some things were clearly not clear, it must be because he is finite and limited. But, since he had a clear and distinct idea of God, he found it necessary to explain how his imperfections could come from a perfect Being. Establishing that error was a defect, a privation, it could not be blamed on God. And God, of course, cannot deceive or cause us to err if he is God at all.2

Descartes saw that God is necessarily perfect, infinite and complete, and that he himself is not. If the opposite of God is nothingness, then he finds himself caught somewhere in between this nothingness and the totality of God, and is therefore sufficiently convinced that error is due to the finite nature of his knowledge and will. And, moreover, that he wills further than he understands, which is the ultimate cause of his own error. Because he wills what he does not understand, he loses sight of what is clear and distinct, abandoning that which God has given him the ability to know and therefore deceives himself and falls into sin.3

For Descartes, there is now a clear and distinct idea of why it is that he commits errors. God is not to blame, and it is not merely that he chooses to do wrong. It is the case that his intellect and will, and the freedom in which they operate, are not sufficiently in sync.4 But it is not clear how this explains the assumed contradiction between God’s goodness and evil in the world. Even if Descartes can explain his finite intellect and will, he has not properly answered for God’s allowing evil to persist in any other form.

But given that perhaps Descartes never set out to solve such a problem in the context of his Meditations, which were purely to find out what he could know “indubitably”. We can carry on this discussion in the way it has traditionally been framed: that if God were God, he would end the evil and suffering in the world because He would desire to and be able to. To properly understand this argument, a proper form may be illuminating. That is, (1) There is a God who is all-powerful and all-loving, and (2) Evil exists. This is a problem initially of logic, although it has never been shown how this provides an actual, explicit logical contradiction.5 Typically there are at least 2 hidden assumptions within this argument. First, that if God is all-powerful, He can prevent evil and second, that if God is all-good, He would prevent it. These assumptions hold that God could create beings who always freely choose what is good, and that God could end all natural evil.

But, this argument, on these assumptions, is purely speculative, and if it is even possible that humans have free will, our first and second assumptions are not necessarily true. Again, that both an all-good and all-powerful God exist and that evil exists is no contradiction. So the most basic of claims to the contrary is defeated. The problem in sum may not be, but holding this set of assertions is.

J.L. Mackie brings about a second problem, however, which is the question of egregious, gratuitous evil, and especially nature evil that does not hinge on human free will.6 That is, that there is an inconsistency between the God of love and the vastness of evil. But again, there are hidden assumptions here to reckon with.

First, we assume that there is more evil than there ought to be in the world. That is, we assume God could have still allowed some evil (especially of the moral sort) but less natural evil. But it is possible that God could not have created a world with less evil and kept the same amount of good. It is possible that God has allowed the current amount of evil because it brings about the most possible good for humankind. It is further possible that with the total eradication of evil there would not be good at all, which would be contrary to the attributes the theistic God is generally thought to have.

Truly, the assumption in terms of how we view the quantity of evil really betrays the position that we believe we have any ground to stand on in judging God’s moral decisions. It is completely possible that if God has sufficient moral reasons for allowing any evil (e.g., hardship causes us to grow and mature), then God could have morally sufficient reasons to allow all evil. To argue to the contrary is pure speculation.

Furthermore, as finite, limited beings, we are not capable of establishing where God is justified and where he is not. We must admit that there are a vast amount of evils or difficulties or sufferings in which we cannot immediately see a reason, but which later may make sense or be capable of being explained in a larger, historical or even personal context. The God who is all-powerful is also outside of space and time and transcends the limitations which are often to blame for our anger or misunderstanding of evil. It is simply unreasonable to assume that if God had morally sufficient reasons for allowing some evil that we would know what those reasons are.

This all amounts, of course, not to an actual theodicy. In this context, what is primary is to establish a defense. That is to say, to show that the problem of evil is not the problem it seems to be, one must only show that it is not logically impossible or incompatible for God and evil to exist. To establish a theodicy, or reason for why, exactly, God allows evil, is perhaps important, but is a separate endeavor from our present one of a defense of the theistic God in terms of the evil present in the world.

So what Descartes saw as his finite ability to know as far as he wills, and the separation between himself and God can be helpful in this regard. We ought not throw up our hands in despair, nor do we let God off the hook because He is God and we just cannot know. We ought not appeal to mystery or ignorance, but we make careful our assumptions and think clearly about our response to problems. Taken in isolation, the problem of evil is problematic, but in sum it approaches nothing near a contradiction or crushing blow.

Citations

1. Epicurus (341-270 B.C.), quoted by Lactantuis (A.D. 260-340) in William Dyrness' Christian Apologetics in a World Community (Inter-Varsity Press, 1983), p. 153.

2. Rene Descartes Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, "Meditation Four" (Hackett Publishing Company, 1993), pp. 82-83.

3. Ibid, p. 85.

4. Ibid, p. 86-87.

5. See various speeches and writings of Dr. William Lane Craig and J.L. Mackie's The Miracle of Theism (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1982) pp. 154-155.

Growth

In his Kingdom Triangle, J.P. Moreland suggests the importance of growing intellectually and increasing confidence in God and truth. An more worthy venture hardly comes to mind. His first of three ways toward this end is to,

"Be ruthless in assessing the precise nature and strength of what you actually believe and develop a specific plan of attack for improvement" (p. 133).

His suggestion is to make lists of things that you believe, or don't believe, and the degree to which either is as it is. Furthermore, and what interests me most, write down questions you cannot answer, but would like to. This is something I will be doing here, and I hope that anyone who reads it may offer insight if they have it. Not slogans or cliches, but knowledge and understanding.

Here then, are 10 questions I shall seek to understand better than I do:

1. In what ways does Christianity differ from early Mediterranean religions, and why should it be seen as anything other than a copycat religion stemming from a Judaism stolen from an Egyptian heresy?

2. What makes me think that prayer works, or in what ways do I believe in prayer? Is it just for us? Does God listen or care? How should one pray; how should one not pray?

3. What sort of political ideology is most compatible with the life of Jesus and the prescriptions laid out for us by scripture? Should we care? And if so, what policies ought we care most about and which might we appropriately shun? What, specifically, should we believe about gay rights, abortion, war, democracy, capitalism, animal rights, social justice, poverty, trade, terrorism, the military, foreign policy, Israel, or taxes?

4. Who wrote the Bible, and who canonized it? How do the different versions differ, and which one is most accurate and why?

5. What is the appropriate response of Christians concerning the end of the world, the second coming of Christ, the Antichrist and the mark of the beast, and the book of Revelations?

6. What are the prevailing theories that leading Christians hold concerning Evolution and Creation? How do Christians either combat the overwhelming evidence for evolution or how do they reconcile evolution with a belief in the inerrancy of the word of God and any particular notions of the importance of creation? Is theistic evolution tenable or too weak? What are Darwinian responses to the problems raised by specified complexity and the non viability of transitional forms?

7. Are miracles a violation of natural laws?

8. Why is naturalism, or scientific naturalism, not a more reasonable approach to the difficult questions of existence, being, morality, etc? And isn't the appeal to God on difficult issues a mere cop out or default position which is destined for embarrassment given the possibility of finding natural causes for otherwise-imagined God-based answers? Does naturalism escape the dogmatic snares of religion?

9. What is the most appropriate Christian response to Post-Modernism and relativism? What about the Emerging Church?

10. What do I do with the doctrines of predestination? What do I believe about Calvinism? Which points do I accept; which do I deny? What does scripture say about grace and works, and what are the current leading positions on the debate? What does free will mean? Is there a limit to God's sovereignty? Has he given us full reign over our choices? Doesn't he know our answers anyways? Is God waiting on us to decide anything?

There are many others, of course, but these are most troublesome to me, and most pressing. So, it is my intention to read up, and to get bits and pieces of answers and insights wherever I can. If you read this (Jen, Nick, Andy, Ashley, Reuben, whomever), perhaps you have questions of your own, or perhaps you can help me with mine.

Ok? Ready... break.

Furthermore on Knowledge...

"Our religion is a religion of knowledge, not private faith, and we must teach people the ins and outs of knowledge as part of the recovery of our heritage as the sons and daughters of God."
J.P. Moreland, Kingdom Triangle, p. 130

Knowledge is a great treasure, but there is one thing higher than knowledge, and that is understanding... To make sense of information - to understand it - one has to put it into fruitful relationship with other information, and grasp the meaning of that relationship; which implies finding patterns, learning lessons, drawing inferences, and as a result seeing the whole. This task - achieving understanding - is par excellence the task of philosophy.
A.C. Grayling, The Mystery of Things, p. 1

This is precisely what it is to have a Christian worldview: To have knowledge of Christianity and its rich cultural and intellectual heritage, of the Bible, and of God, and to apply it to the whole of one's life. This must be the responsibility of anyone who believes Christianity offers not just salvation, but truth about the world and hope for it found nowhere else.