RFG: Intro.: Best of Left and Right, and Doubting Doubts

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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Week zero of fourteen (so fifteen weeks total) ('cause next week I don’t want to have to say “week two” when it is chapter one). Week seven will include the intermission, whereas week fourteen will include the epilogue.

“The Reason for God” (Keller) Book Discussion – Introduction

Best of Left and Right, and Doubting Doubts

Keller observes, “the world is polarizing over religion. It is getting both more religious and less religious at the same time,” (x). Do you see this in your day-to-day? If so, how so? If not, how do the people around you seem to feel about religion? How do you feel about religion? Would you like to give a brief synopsis of your faith narrative thus far (modeled after June, Jeffrey and Kelly’s)? This is a great way to introduce yourself to the group. You can view my testimony here: http://jesuschristsonofgodsavior.blogspot.com/2008/08/my-testimony.html

Keller mentioned “the two camps,” and a “third camp.” In the first two camps, “the people most passionate about social justice were moral relativists, while the morally upright didn’t seem to care about the oppression going on all over the world,” (xii). In response to the first camp, Keller asked, “If morality is relative, why isn’t social justice as well?” In response to the second camp, “Christianity began to seem very unreal” to him. This formed one of three barriers to his faith. The three barriers were 1) intellectual (the tough questions), 2) interior, personal (lack of experiencing God’s presence), and 3) social (dissatisfaction with the first two camps and a need for the third camp). In the third camp he found a “band of brothers” (and sisters) – “a group of Christians who had a concern for justice in the world but who grounded it in the nature of God rather than in their own subjective feelings,” (xiii). In another section he mentions a spiritual third way (the first two ways being traditional conservative and secular liberal) that is “much more concerned about the poor and social justice than Republicans have been, and at the same time much more concerned about upholding classic Christian moral and sexual ethics than Democrats have been,” (xx). Does this third camp appeal to you, and, if so, what are some practical ways to develop it? If not, why not? Have you identified any barriers to your faith that Keller did not mention?

I like how Keller points out “A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it.” I also like how Keller sees that all doubts emerge from a starting point of alternate belief, and that he encourages skeptics to “doubt their doubts” with as much force as they require justification for Christian belief. I like his goal that “Believers and nonbelievers will rise to the level of disagreement rather than simply denouncing the other. This happens when each side has learned to represent the other’s argument in its strongest and most positive form. … I’ve tried to respectfully help skeptics look at their own faith-foundations while at the same time laying bare my own to their strongest criticisms,” (xxviii, xix). Keller is not afraid of this ‘laying bare’. He concludes the introduction pointing out how, though Thomas doubted, Jesus gave him the evidence he sought; even though the man in Mark 9:24 had doubts, Jesus “blesses him and heals his son.” “I invite you to seek the same kind of honesty and to grow in an understanding of the nature of your own doubts. The result will exceed anything you can imagine,” (xxiii). His reference to ‘honesty’ reminds me of my fellowship’s emphasis on ‘authenticity’. I have found all of this to be true in my own spiritual journey with Christ, and it is ultimately what I pray for this group as we work through Keller’s “The Reason for God.” Do you fear doubt, questioning, and ‘laying bare’ your beliefs to criticism? Why do you agree or disagree with footnote 9 (page 244)? Do you doubt the result that Keller promises? What are your personal goals for this book discussion?

Is there anything in the introduction you would like to discuss that I did not refer to?

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Thought I’d bump this to the top to give it another shot… going to post another chapter, though, too.

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Hello Ichthus:
I have not the read this book…I am too busy reading Dale Crane’s Powerplant Test Guide…but I’ll comment on a few things.
— Keller observes, “the world is polarizing over religion. It is getting both more religious and less religious at the same time,” (x). Do you see this in your day-to-day?
O- Of course but this depends too much on how either of us defines “religion” that we may then compare where and when the world more or less religious. While it has, in my opinion, become less religious, here in the West more evidently, it has become more spiritual, and this, as always, is the source of polarization.

— Keller mentioned “the two camps,” and a “third camp.” In the first two camps, “the people most passionate about social justice were moral relativists
O- There could be a connection: The moral relativist passes very little judgment, does not dicern, divide, categorize, as much as the moral absolutist who does see in black and white, in terms of error and truth and separates between the righteous and the unrighteous, thus the first sees a “society” much more easily than the second.

—… while the morally upright didn’t seem to care about the oppression going on all over the world,” (xii).
O- The moral absolutistist is not blind to social suffering but has divided society much more so that a tract of humanity is outside of his group, his society is therefore less. Suffering within his group is unacceptable, and the suffering of the Other is explained in different ways, but almost always as merited, earned suffering or corrective suffering, either way sanitizing said suffering, giving it a meaning, a purpose.

— In response to the first camp, Keller asked, “If morality is relative, why isn’t social justice as well?”
O- because the ailments of humanity are particular to said humanity. Social justice generally requires the fulfillment of needs generally associated with man. It is not relative because as men, we can symphatize and connect. I am human, therefore no human being is entirely alien to me…not entirely familiar either, but not an undiscoverable country…truth is somewhere in between. This is why these men were called “humanists”.
I can, out of a common humanity, recognize the need of a hungry child, the needs of the widow, the ill, the infirm old and wounded, and help, not because it is moral to do so, but because there is a symphaty between me and that Other. Tutta la moralita in questo mundo non vale un cappuccino fra amici. It is a physical experience, concrete, actual and without ambiguity. It is immediate and real to us.
Not so with morality.
Morality is a code of oughts and ought not, but does not connect to a common humanity to which a man may find a reference, but points to ideas, ideals, or God. While social justice applies to any human society, morals change from society to society. There are many names for God and many God-given moralities and so the moral absolutist must choose one by faith rather than by what is clearly general to humanity. Notice how relativism came from the opening of a society to the diversity of the world. To all absolutists I simply invite to peruse the vast variety of moralities and even Judeo-Christian morals over the span of centuries. An honest observer must confront this source of doubt.

— The three barriers were 1) intellectual (the tough questions), 2) interior, personal (lack of experiencing God’s presence), and 3) social (dissatisfaction with the first two camps and a need for the third camp).
O- Addesss the third and the first two will seem resolved…that what people do all the time. The first two bring forth doubt that forces a shift, a new take, a new interpretation, some may say “creation”, but that is not how they’ll see it-- they’ll feel the hand of God within, thus the second barrier is toppled—and the irrational impetus to find the third way, the way out of the impasse, topples the first barrier. Reason is a slave to our passions, so the second barrier is the only true barrier. Place within a heart a passion and barriers will fall.

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Thanks for replying. I’ll reply as soon as I can. Are you training to work on plane engines? It’d be cool to work for an airline and get discounted flights–travel everywhere.

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Now wait just a second here, Omar. Do you honestly think I can’t spot the word “capuccino” from a mile away? What are you saying to me? :laughing:

That isn’t my full response.

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Omar,

I think your observations are interesting, and if you read Keller’s book you might find him agreeing with some of them. I can get you a copy at a bargain if you are interested.

I think you are right that we can sometimes feel like people are living out the consequences of poor choices and so not feel obligated to help them–and can overgeneralize that to people whose histories we don’t even know.

You basically think that social justice is as relative as morality (do you not?), whereas Keller thinks neither are relative [edit: and that they are not distinct from eachother].

Kierkegaard wrote that universal truth is not out there but personal—“Subjectivity is Truth”—and he wasn’t talking about cognitive relativism. If moral truth is essentially love, for example, Kierkegaard makes a lot of sense, as love is personal and not out there. [If you’ve read my paper, you’ve read this paragraph before.]

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Hello Ichthus:

— I think your observations are interesting, and if you read Keller’s book you might find him agreeing with some of them. I can get you a copy at a bargain if you are interested.
O- I just don’t have the time right now. I have a stack of wounderful books that are crying my name and are appalled that Dale Crane has taken their seat of power. But what can I do? Gotta move up in the world…

— You basically think that social justice is as relative as morality (do you not?)
O- No, but that social justice is more general and less relative–that is, our ideas of what is social justice, regardless of religion, creed or nationality, are more easily spread than would be a specific religion, more generally accepted than specific religion and less relative to the time and place in which they are conceived. I quoted rules found in the old testament for the treatment of homosexuals. Those prescriptions have not survived the test of time and yet the old tenet of social justice of helping the poor and protecting the weak has not.

— Keller thinks neither are relative [edit: and that they are not distinct from eachother].
O- Crusades for social justice are secular religions. Best example is Communism, but the values of Communism have a different root than spiritual religion. It is rooted inside a common concept, a singular name: Humanity. Because of this the message of Communism rivaled the universality of Catholicism itself. Research a bit about the appeal of Christianity in pagan Rome, maybe through Anarldo Momigliano or Ramsay MacMullen and you will see that it was Christianity’s social justice, similar to Communism but with a different root, that made it universally appealling rather than it’s rationality or precepts or mechanism for salvation, all of which to this day remain contested and subject to revision, even if Keller does not think so.

— Kierkegaard wrote that universal truth is not out there but personal—“Subjectivity is Truth”—and he wasn’t talking about cognitive relativism. If moral truth is essentially love, for example, Kierkegaard makes a lot of sense, as love is personal and not out there. [If you’ve read my paper, you’ve read this paragraph before.]
O- I haven’t read your paper, but I have read Kierkegaard and the first thing that one recognizes is that he is well-placed within the existentialist movement. As such we can look at this phrase better. “Subjectivity is Truth”=“The Truth is subjective”, that is that Truth, with capital “T” is not guaranteed objectively but must be wrestled as a choice. He criticised how the people of his time sought to go beyond religion when they had not even gone inside religion, which is not an easy matter, but he compared to fear and trembling and used the story of Abraham to show his point. His point was that the believer had no safety for his belief but instead must recognized that his faith is a choice, undetermined, unwarranted, without an object in which to dig in his finger (like the lucky doubting Thomas). I agree a lot with him and this is why I say there is no “discovered” code or “Truth” but that it is created, subjective, MY faith, MY belief, “Faith”, in fact, because it has no guarantee, no determinant factor or possible corroboration, no object that is available to both me and all other observers, to be discovered. Instead faith, qua faith, is subjective, but at the same time this subjectivity is truth, is our truth, is what moves us, but only as if it was objective and not because it is in fact determined by an object that we have discovered.

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My books-to-be-read don’t cry my name anymore. They just sit there like dead houseplants.

Airplanes will definitely move you up in the world!

Getting weak in how we love eachother is what kills a society (or weakens it, makes it vulnerable). Not helping those who need it, and lusting after or falling in love with someone who you should think of more like a brother or sister (someone of the same sex) – are that sort of weakness… regardless if they are generally accepted. A strong society is a society that knows how to love the way God loves, and trusts God to protect them. There are examples in history of societies that have fallen because of the weakness we are discussing–I’m sure they are already in your mind as you read this. The main society through which God showed Himself to the world is still in existence. If you do not think social justice is relative (though helping those who need it is arguably a value not found in all societies, in every time), then why do you think morality is relative? Just because ideas can spread more easily, be accepted by more people–does not mean they are … natural/discovered (as opposed to “synthetically created”). What matters is if they are the ideas for which we were specifically designed to run at the highest efficiency. Logos… love. One and the same. This current thought seems beautiful to me. Reminds me of the other thread wherein it was mentioned that God is not anti-nature… He created nature.

Quote him where he means this sort of thing. I liked it better the way I said it. Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.

[edit 1/1/09] [This is a recording, please stay on the line; do not hang up.] Thank you Omar for participating in this chapter of the book discussion. All are invited to continue discussion of the chapter, but this reply concludes my participation in this chapter, as I must now turn my attention to the remaining chapters of the discussion. Thanks again.