RFG: THREE: Christianity is a Straitjacket

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“The Reason for God” (Keller) Book Discussion – Part 1: The Leap of Doubt
THREE: Christianity Is a Straitjacket

Chapter 3 is similar to chapter 1 in that both of them deal with the doubt that Christianity is too exclusive about truth and should be more tolerant of non-Christians; they are different in that chapter 3 addresses the main claim that Christianity is stifling to the Christian.

Some favored quotes from the chapter which reflect how chapter 1 and 3 are similar: “Every human community holds in common some beliefs that necessarily create boundaries, including some people and excluding others from its circle,” (39) (examples given are western democratic values foreign to many other cultures, and the distinctly different commitments of the local Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Community Center and the Alliance Against Same-Sex Marriage). “Sanneh argues that secularism with its anti-supernaturalism and individualism is much more destructive of local cultures and ‘African–ness,’” (41) (remember the Jewish holocaust and the increasingly global push for secularization). “Christianity may become the most truly ‘catholic vision of the world,’ having opened its leadership over the centuries to people from every tongue, tribe, and nation,” (45) (‘catholic’ meaning ‘universal’).

Keller mentions that he asks “‘Is there anyone in the world right now doing things you believe they should stop doing no matter what they personally believe about the correctness of their behavior?’ They would invariably say, ‘Yes, of course.’ Then I would ask, ‘Doesn’t that mean that you do believe there is some kind of moral reality that is ‘there’ that is not defined by us, that must be abided by regardless of what a person feels or thinks?’” (47, emphasis Keller’s). What do you think – is there some kind of moral reality that is ‘there’ and is not defined by us, that will ultimately fulfill us if we live within it or damn us if we don’t (see C.S. Lewis quote, p. 48 – “The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation,”)? Granted – a being that doesn’t exist (so isn’t even a ‘being’) cannot live within or be fulfilled by any moral reality (but put heavy emphasis on ‘regardless’ in Keller’s question – and on ‘feels’ – for any potential emotivists reading this).

Considering that relativism refutes itself, then, of the available differing worldviews, only one, if any, can be correct (in the sense where it did not have to compete for its status in the marketplace of ideas, because it was always the only correct worldview). Does your chosen community’s worldview include “beliefs that lead its members to treat persons in other communities with love and respect—to serve them and meet their needs? … lead it to demonize and attack those who violate their boundaries rather than treating them with kindness, humility, and winsomeness?” (40). Also – if your worldview was ‘always’ the only correct worldview – when did ‘always’ begin?

What is hard to accept is that there is only one Way, but it is the Way for everyone – for God so loves the world (John 3:16). But it is not a Way He unlovingly forces upon us, as love is not forced – we must freely choose it. So, let’s turn our focus to how Keller addresses the main claim that Christianity is stifling to the Christian – the “freedom factor,” if you will.

“Instead of insisting on freedom to create spiritual reality, shouldn’t we be seeking to discover it and disciplining ourselves to live according to it? … What then is the moral-spiritual reality we must acknowledge to thrive? What is the environment that liberates us if we confine ourselves to it, like water liberates the fish? Love. Love is the most liberating freedom-loss of all,” (47, emphasis mine). The discussion of discovering a set purpose rather than manufacturing a new purpose reminds me of the saying, “No need to reinvent the wheel.” “Freedom, then, is not the absence of limitations and constraints but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us,” (49, emphasis mine). I love the C.S. Lewis quote on 48. I love knowing that the divine requirement is also our complete fulfillment: love.

I also love how Keller points out that this love requirement is not a one-way street. “In the most radical way, God has adjusted to us—in his incarnation and atonement. In Jesus Christ he became a limited human being, vulnerable to suffering and death. On the cross, he submitted to our condition—as sinners—and died in our place to forgive us. In the most profound way, God has said to us, in Christ, ‘I will adjust to you. I will change for you. I’ll serve you though it means a sacrifice for me.’ If he has done this for us, we can and should say the same to God and others. St. Paul writes, ‘the love of Christ constrains us’ (2 Corinthians 5:14),” (49). It is this truth that set me free – the truth of His sacrificial pursuing of each of us, before and after He finds us, whether or not we yet know it.

I have heard two ironically opposed arguments related to this: 1) if He can omnipotently rise from death, His death means nothing, and 2) if He can be vulnerable, He is not omnipotent. To the first: He did physically die and communicate His unconditional love through His sacrifice. To the second: God’s love is more powerful than raw power – the last will be first, the first will be last. One could argue that the inability to love (or fear of loving; love requires more than mere physical strength) is a greater weakness than lack of physical strength (see again C.S. Lewis quote, p. 48) – and God does not love we temporal beings from a lack (as we do apart from Him), but from His eternal perfection. See also…

http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/articles/impassib.htm

This is also discussed in chapter 14.

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The idea that there is one best or true moral reality which is best for all people is a dangerous notion.

While you would make arguments and extrapolations for why christianity is the actual moral reality, i would ask the question “what if there is none?”.

you basically said love is the best, therefore christianity and its love is the best.

Personally, i like happiness more than love. to each his own right?

so instead of following the real reality fo christianity and being moderately happy, i’m going to follow my own desires and make myself even happier.

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Why would secularism be much more destructive of local cultures and, er, ‘African-ness’? Is the guy making the (weak) argument that it’s somehow better to supplant an inferior set of myths with a superior one, rather than to have no mythology at all? First of all, that doesn’t even accurately characterize what ‘secularism’ means or does. Second, the comment smells slightly of racism, or perhaps more cultural elitism…like there’s something more in need of fixing or more damaged from the abundance of belief in the supernatural in cultures considered under the category ‘African-ness’ versus, say, ‘South American-ness’. And it makes me wonder if the guy knows that Africa’s an extremely diverse continent, and not a country. Which culture?

I have no idea what the construct ‘moral reality’ means, it’s one of those terms that can be construed all sorts of ways. Although I imagine that to Christians it means something like God is real and therefore God is the foundation of morality. Beyond the God thing, it sounds like moral absolutism to me. Using the example above, I would suggest that the response given to Keller’s question is incomplete if it’s addressing morality. A better response, IMO, would be “Yes, of course, but then again, I know that it’s entirely possible that they view the situation from a different perspective than I do, considering how different our life experiences are, and that what I believe to be moral is not necessarily viewed the same from that different perspective. Really the different views aren’t the issue. What’s important is that we have to both increase our capacities for tolerance of difference and seeking continued understanding in a respectful, diplomatic framework.”

And I find that when I answer it that way, his response makes no sense.

Uh, I don’t think that ‘relativism refutes itself’. Also, the difference between me, as a non-theist, and a theist reading the sentence "Does your chosen community’s worldview include “beliefs that lead its members to treat persons in other communities with love and respect—to serve them and meet their needs?” is that I would not assume that I know their ‘needs’ until they choose to tell me what they are AND that those needs may very well include me leaving them alone. And I would never consider that their ‘needs’ include having to be exposed to my beliefs about my religion, what I believe will happen after death, or how I’ve had some internal revelation that the only way to that particular version of salvation is by believing what I do.

I have always thought – and this hasn’t changed one bit since I’ve been reading ILP’s Religion threads – that monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam, even when they do such good deeds as feeding and clothing the poor, don’t have the fundamental ability to truly address others’ (meaning non-Christians or non-Muslims) needs because there’s always a string attached that leads to a falsehood. Or, putting it a bit more diplomatically, there’s always a string attached that leads to what’s stated (even ardently and with all good intent) to be a truism, but which simply can’t be proven as such. And that, in and of itself, is a very strong defense for never extending that string in the first place. Instead, extend good will by meeting the needs they tell you they need met. Then go home.

IMO, one doesn’t benefit from – or perhaps even realize – freedom without possessing and exercising wisdom and compassion (the term I use in lieu of ‘love’), that’s all.

There isn’t much I have to say about this as an argument. But I imagine that devoted Christians really can’t comprehend how abominable it is to some others. And I’m really not expressing that out of scorn. It’s just that when I read it (and I don’t often) I’m taken aback by how morally reprehensible it is to me, how I see this as barbaric and disparaging of what’s fundamental and wonderful about human life. And yet I know that I co-exist with millions on this planet who find it sublimely beautiful and so inspiring that they assume a particular life path because of it.

That’s amazing to me, really, when I actually take a few minutes to contemplate it.

These are the sorts of arguments that you find so often on here. They only rise to ‘argument’ status after one makes that leap to accepting that God is reality with no proof other than an intuitive feeling that one has been ‘chosen’ for a revelation from that God. And I’m not even knocking that certainty as the foundation for a moral code for living, I’m simply addressing that how these manage to persist as legitimate arguments in the world is, well, odd to me.

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Thanks for replying, Wonderer and Ingenium. I will reply a.s.a.p…

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Hi Ichthus,

Every human community holds values in common and they have generally built a wall around them to protect those values within their community. The term “to be free” originally meant this kind of liberty. Everyone who lived within those walls was able to live the life that was not possible outside the protection of the wall. When society becomes globalised, it isn’t so much a case that walls are knocked down, but that more and more area is claimed by those within a certain wall – you could say that the wall is moved inch for inch across the planet. This is what conquests are about.

Problems arise when the particular kind of “freedom” of a certain community spreads so widely that all other communities have to bow down to it and a monolithic culture starts to take over that cannot accept deviations. This is the classic problem with humanity portrayed in Judeo-Christian religion as the results of “the fall”. Duality takes over and identifies “good” and “bad” communities. The problem with this is that the identity of the “others” is made by their deviation from a given “norm”. Of course this norm is “divinely” given and not to be doubted. Anybody who doubts it must be mad and (thanks for the metaphor) ends up in a straightjacket.

The difficulty that I have, whilst grasping the initial wisdom of Judeo-Christian faith, is that it is becoming more and more difficult to accept the given norm because as we come to further understand the human reality, it becomes very apparent that (for example) homosexuality is no more worthy of a straightjacket than the widespread clinging to “things” and illusions and consequent suffering. The answer of Christianity, perhaps not encompassing all “deviations” at first, but progressing gradually, is the forgiveness and redemption through the divine “norm-giver”. If a deviation from that norm that causes suffering can be forgiven by the cross, then a deviation that is only a matter of sexual preference must also be subject to exoneration. This is a logic that is apparent in the New Testament but seldom followed by evangelical Christians.

I believe that the monolithic tendencies are not only religious, but looking at “A Brave New World” by Aldous Huxely, and the number of fascist movements without religious grounding (some of them purporting to be socialist); it is a very real possibility outside of the church. What seems to be the big problem for over a hundred years is that both monoliths are competing against each other, but they fail to account for the varieties of race and culture, which are not only to be measured against ones own race or culture, but as a further expression of human diversity. In fact, the spread of mono-cultural aspirations is an expression of power ambitions and the inability to accept the reality of “fallen” creation, or the “isness” of humanity, to which we all belong in an equally “fallen” state.

Morality is, according to the Bible, the result of the fall which leads to duality. Whenever we adopt only one side of the argument, we are falling into a trap which, in Judeo-Christian terms, estranges us from God. The perfection that Jesus calls us to is literally “completeness” and overcoming duality (and with it morality) which brings us to agape, which is the initial acceptance of God in the words “it was good!”, but now despite the deviations. Morality is only a valid religious currency until agape is established. According to the NT, we have agape through Jesus Christ – if we would only live it.

When people behave differently to the way that we believe is wholesome and sustaining for humanity, we have to understand why. There are numerous reasons, some of which I am completely convinced are not grasped because we don’t like them. Who among evangelical Christians can accept that Bin Laden believes that he is a “freedom fighter” who has struck a blow at Satan? What would change his mind? What could the west do to convince him and his followers otherwise? The problem is that these questions are absolutely not asked and this reaction provides the stand-off that causes so much suffering! Christians doing this invoke the Name of Christ, but they are living in the Old Testament!

The point here is that, because I can’t think a different solution, there can’t be one. It isn’t a question of relativism, rather the fact that duality is not the solution. The NT shows the way to encompass the whole of reality and reconcile all deviations, if we would only but realise that those scriptures were just the beginning.

Shalom

PS: You are avoiding addressing my posts

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Hello, Ingenium. I don’t mean to single you out, but I wanted to say that I appreciate you putting thought into your reply, and the perspective you bring to this discussion.

I think you are assuming Christianity supplants, when it doesn’t (not as a rule… there is a history of horrible stuff I recently studied, but that isn’t ‘Christianity’). How would you represent secularism and what it does? You should read the chapter–I really want to quote the relevant section, but it’s a lot of typing (I can get you a copy if you need one). Keller doesn’t think ‘belief in the supernatural’ is something damaged that needs to be fixed (he believes in the supernatural). Sanneh is from Gambia, and when he says “African-ness” he is comparing it to, for example, “European-ness” as far as culture goes.

Is there anyone in the world right now doing things you believe they should stop doing no matter what they personally believe about the correctness of their behavior? I don’t want to have to give examples of horrible behaviors I wouldn’t tolerate diplomatically, but I can think of a few–can’t you?

Yeah… I am totally with you one hundred percent in everything you said… except about relativism (it refutes itself because if all beliefs are true, then the belief “not all beliefs are true” is also true… a contradiction). We cannot prove anything–only weigh the evidence. That’s what this discussion is all about… weighing. I don’t think by ‘needs’ it is necessarily meant in the sense that they are poor, but on that note, I think that it sucks to feel like you’re being hit-and-run helped by someone who doesn’t really care about ‘you’–they just want to feel like a good person for the moment and pass on their ideas. There’s this organization called CHE that would agree with you completely… check this out: https://www.cheintl.org/How_CHE_Works.html.

Yup.

What do you think is fundamental and wonderful about human life, and how is it disparaged by what you read (how is it barbaric, morally reprehensible)?

You don’t have to believe in God in order assume His existence for the purpose of critical examination. This means that you can also do this if you ‘do’ believe in God. All arguments assume certain things as ‘given’. That isn’t odd. That is how it is, or critical examination would never get off the ground. You can’t examine anything if you don’t assume its existence. As long as you are not arguing in favor of its existence, there is nothing odd about assuming it.

Thanks so much for discussing this with me. :slight_smile:

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– Bob

I’m really not. Sorry it takes me so long. I understand your impatience.

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If you think you have fond the best way of doing things, then you are likely to want to share that way of doing things with other people.

And some people will surely resist, and sometimes you might try and force people to do things your way, even though they do not want to.

And in doing that you make them unhappy, and then if you find out that your way of doing things was wrong, then you just wasted a lot of peoples valueable time

Just because we are not doing things in terms of a grand scheme, does not mean that nothing matters.

If god didn’t exist, or suddenly vanished, nothing about our current life would change. You wouldn’t notice the change. I hereby submit that if there was no god you would not go roll in the mud because that simply would not be comfortable and not make you happy at all.

well for some people hate fills them. different emotions make different people happy. there is not only one state of mind.

well, a lust for adventure. My desire to see the world and understand things. My desire to meet different cultures and to impact things.

I guess i follow the desires i would love to fufill.

Gandhi says, Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

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Bob,

No one can force you to ‘hunger and thirst after righteousness’. But there are certain things righteosness is, and certain things it isn’t.

Good-evil is not a duality. Good (moral) preexisted evil (immoral), as evil (deviation) is good (agape) messed up.

All deviations (all sin) are subject to exoneration (forgiveness/atonement)–but when we repent (turn to God), we do not turn back to those deviations (we may struggle with them, but we don’t give up the fight).

There are no mono-cultural aspirations. God will challenge different aspects (fallen) of every culture, but those aspects that go unchallenged … that diversity … is celibrated.

Are you saying we have to earn Jesus’ love? That ain’t what I heard. :techie-studyingbrown:

Bin Laden, in my mind, seems to have the mindset of a Pharisee, the people Jesus confronted and who would not listen. I think God works in everyone’s hearts, at their pace, through various means. I think you are wrong that evangelical Christians (every last one of us) don’t try and understand what makes others tick and what would change their mind–but you may be accurate as far as critiqueing the majority. It is up to God (and Bin Laden) how to deal with Bin Laden in an eternal sense, but it is up to us (or those with influence) to protect others from him. If God uses someone to get through to Bin Laden and change his mind–that would be awesome. Do you think Bin Laden will listen to an evangelical Christian? Stranger things have happened.

I will reply to Wonderer asap.

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Hi Ichthus,

Who is talking about “forcing”?

Just because you language suggests this doesn’t mean that it is so. Good an evil in other (biblical) languages are synonymous with ripe and unripe, mature and immature or flowing and staccato. Your reliance upon morality shows that you haven’t yet understood Genesis 2.

You have just contradicted yourself – what is that struggle if not the fact that the deviation is not behind us? This is the same moralistic approach as that of the Pharisees, of whom Jesus said that they resembled the tombs they honoured: Outwardly they are whitewashed, but inwardly full of death. Paul gave us a dramatic account of this kind of morality grinding down the religious in Romans 7(14ff).

Read again … and just realise how your reactions are so stereotyped and conditioned that you are unable to think for yourself!

Perhaps you shouldn’t start so many threads off at once.

Shalom

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[This is a recording, please stay on the line; do not hang up.] Thank you Wonderer, Ingenium, and Bob 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.

Wonderer:

sometimes you might try and force people to do things your way, even though they do not want to.

And in doing that you make them unhappy,

Please read chapter one’s original post, here:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=166191

Just because we are not doing things in terms of a grand scheme, does not mean that nothing matters.

There’re two different types of meaning/mattering being tossed around. Created meaning/mattering and discovered meaning/mattering. Created meaning/mattering that conflicts with discovered meaning/mattering is “mud” (edit to Wonderer: if you think all meaning is created, that doesn’t necessarily mean it conflicts with what is meant as discovered meaning–with love–with loving the other as you love yourself, for example… sometimes you conform to it without considering it ‘discovered’… I am thinking about this in my Free Will vs. Blind Will thread). “A lust for adventure. My desire to see the world and understand things. My desire to meet different cultures and to impact things,” does not conflict with discovered meaning—ask any missionary. I like the Tolstoy quote which begins chapter thirteen: (excerpt) “Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?” (201).

…you would not go roll in the mud because that simply would not be comfortable and not make you happy at all.

Stubborn folk like myself… we have to find that out for ourselves, follow our own created meaning, before we are ready to choose discovered meaning.

Personally, i like happiness more than love. to each his own right? …for some people hate fills them. different emotions make different people happy.

In the Moral Truth thread, you started including ‘working together’ in your definition of happiness. Behind that is love. Genuine, lasting happiness is not mere changing emotion.

Bob:

– Bob

There is no contradiction. If we do not struggle with it, but give in to it, then we embrace the deviation. If we put it behind us, we may still struggle with it, but we do not give in to it. For example. Say you are addicted to pornography, so that you have pornographic images popping into your mind even when you do not wilfully recall them. You decide to take the hand God is holding out to you, you quit viewing pornography, but the images remain, together with your physiological reactions to them. But instead of being motivated to view pornography when those images pop into your mind, you are motivated to talk to God instead, and distract your mind by studying something cool in the Bible, like ordering the OT into a chronological narrative, for example. So you have put viewing pornography behind you, but you still struggle with it. In order to be like the ones Jesus confronted, you would have to hold on to the images in your head and never want them to leave, you would have to view pornography but lie to everyone else and say you don’t view it anymore, and condemn others who admit to viewing it or fantasizing about it. Or, you would have to make someone feel like a failure for still struggling with it, even though they have put it behind them. Be careful. [Edit: I had to come back and say that viewing pornography in a moment of weakness… or even the great prolonged falls that some go through… does not necessarily amount to “turning back” to the deviation… giving up the struggle altogether is turning back… feeling like there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, no guilt you are suppressing… that is turning back. Bob mentioned “letting it pass” and sometimes that works–but sometimes it doesn’t “just pass” and you must do something to counter it, or it will overtake you. He also mentioned ‘losing salvation’ somewhere–that is impossible.]

Bob wrote: we have agape through Jesus Christ – if we would only live it.
Ichthus wrote: Are you saying we have to earn Jesus’ love? That ain’t what I heard.

Read again …

If that wasn’t what you meant, then what you wrote sounds like something I would say. Live like we are loved (because we are).

and just realise how your reactions are so stereotyped and conditioned that you are unable to think for yourself!

Chances are, neither of our reactions are free from stereotype. But, we are both able to think for ourselves, whether or not we choose to.

Perhaps you shouldn’t start so many threads off at once.

Wise observation.

[This is a recording, please stay on the line; do not hang up.] Thank you Wonderer, Ingenium, and Bob 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.

(2nd edit corrected poor word choice from provoked to confronted.)
(3rd edit for the porn-addiction section.)
(4th edit also for the porn-addiction section.)

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Ichthus, when it comes down to it i see all beliefs as being created. Even the idea of an eternal afterlife and gods word i see as being created.

you spoke of created meaning being “mud” if they conflict with discovered “meaning”

Because i believe that all meaning is created, i see this view as being detrimental to non religious beliefs.

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Hi Ichthus,

My point is that you said that people do not “turn back” after repentance, but if we stay within your example, addiction is something that remains with somebody their life long; it isn’t something one can “turn away” from, but has to be accepted as being there all the time. Once the damage is done, the question is how to deal with it. If we suggest that having pornographic images in ones mind is the problem itself, then these people will never be free of sin. Only when they realise that the mind and the images have a law unto themselves and that they learn to let them pass by ignoring them, will they overcome their addiction.

If you struggle or fight these images, or any addiction, you give it power. The more you struggle, the less you achieve and the more incidental damage you do to yourself. That is the danger of morality which assumes that every thing is simply black and white and a matter of choice. In actual fact, stress reduction through mindfulness has proven that it is the ability to relax and focus your mind that achieves far more that building up physical tension, which is almost always the result of moral struggles.

Shalom