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It strikes me that much of our apparently modern western insight or social morality is a restatement of things we have unconsciously learned from the Bible and sometimes modified or watered down:
- Don’t worry, be happy
- The Golden Rule
- Think Positive
- Basic human rights
- Save the planet
- Love as the greatest virtue
Don’t Worry be Happy
Jesus said “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” and “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” in Matthew 6:25-34 referring to our tendency to worry about our worldly needs. The modern meaning however is almost the opposite where we are encouraged to amass worldly goods and insurance whilst neglecting all deeper reflection which science cannot answer.
The Golden Rule
Jesus said “Do to others as you would have them do to you” as part of a longer exhortation in Luke 6 to empathy and self-sacrifice. Moderns chopped off the bits about turning the other cheek, minding our own business and forgiveness whilst keeping the pragmatic part which best garantees individual freedom and some measure of social justice.
Think Positive
The 20th century must go down as the century of the self – “solve it with self esteem” we have been told. The Bible speaks about faith which is trust in that which is good and worthy. All the positive thought in the world is not going to make a false thing true or an impossible act possible but faith in a worthy concept or trustworthy person is the key to the power of God to make the humanly impossible possible (Matthew 17:20, Matthew 19:16-27 or any of the hundreds of verses which speak highly of faith).
Basic Human Rights
The idea that all human beings deserve such basic things as justice, dignity, education and so on has only recently been incorporated into legal systems. As recently as last century the USA, arguably the pinnacle of modernity and democracy, wrestled with segregation and slavery is still in effect in many parts of the world. Jesus taught, in Matthew 25:40, that “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me”. God values each life and considers ill-treatment of any human a personal affront. True Christian charity and service has never been something for insiders only but intended as a light to the whole world.
Save the Planet
We’re all trying to become more environmentally friendly especially when it hits our wallets. Jesus came to literally save the entire planet starting with the hearts of men but extending to the whole of creation. A key aspect of Christianity is the new earth which is God’s restoration of goodness to all the created order. Aside from this man was created as a steward of creation, intended to be a dutiful, responsible master over all that lives and answerable to the Creator (Genesis 2).
Love as the Greatest Virtue
Most music, literature and artistic expression attempts to embody and elevate love as the greatest passion/emotion/activity man can attain. Hollywood has perhaps mutated the word into a synonym for copulation but most people recognise the power and benevolence of love. The Bible teaches that love (of God, neighbour and self) is the greatest commandment (Matthew 22), something we need to major in, and that love is the greatest of all virtues without which no good act is truly of value (1 Corinthians 13).
Others
Parents are encouraged to spend time with and listen to their children instead of shooing them off (Matthew 19:14). Loyalty in marriage, truth-telling are basic biblical commands. Anyone who works in sales or customer service is regularly encouraged to “go the extra mile” which comes almost directly from Matthew 5:41. The motivation for salesmen is not love of customers personally of course but a recognition of the fact that customers treated this way tend to be loyal which brings me to my final point: cherry picking the religions for good tips on worldly success leaves much worthwhile by the wayside. Indeed failing to see the underlying principle (love) and only grasping for the fruits we miss out on really changing our world for the better.
So What?
Much of what makes our western society stable, free and attractive to outsiders comes from it’s Christian roots which are sadly being forgotten. Jesus was a pacifist who praised peacemakers and went a route unheard of in world history. Jesus did not fit into any of the 3 categories available to leaders of the time:
- He did not retreat from the world to remain holy and hope for escape in the next life (the religious quietest “holy man”route).
- He did not sharpen his sword, gather an army hope for a chance to revolt against Roman oppression (the revolutionary Zealot route).
- Neither did he conform to the world, disappear in the crowd, and make himself as comfy as possible, getting the most out of life and waiting for whatever happened (the worldly route taken by Jewish leaders of the time).
Jesus came with an agenda so radical and unique it bordered on foolishness and was rejected as such by most of his contemporaries.
The modern world’s agenda has been revisionist in nature: pick what feels right or works best from the world’s philosophers and cultures and discard the rest. In the process Jesus’ real radical message which carries with it power for lasting peace has been whittled away to a few hollow platitudes which bear only a faint echo of the wisdom of which they are but a shadow.
I’ve discovered N.T. Wright recently and have been enthralled by the man’s knowledge, lucidity and dignified manner in the few talks I have been listening to. I wonder if he’s not the modern day C.S. Lewis which would be a coup because Lewis’ work changed and progressed my life more than any other author and this is what Christianity is all about (or at least it’s mechanism): being transformed by the renewing of our mind as we get to know God and his works more deeply.
Wright is the Anglican Bishop of Durham and I was almost disappointed that he does not have the Yorkshire accent I adore but rather the Oxford english I might have expected and possibly also shared by Lewis. The bishop is, like Lewis, a prolific writer: (a caller, apparently, upon being told that the Bishop was busy writing a book replied “It’s OK, I’ll hold”) - I’m going to have to excercise some self-control at Amazon over the next few days.
What most attracted me was that which drew me to Lewis – a fresh, contemporary and profound yet honest rendering of the Christian narrative which leaves you feeling empowered and hungry for more of the depths which are to be searched in discovering God and His purposes.
I read somewhere that Wright is one who puts things in categories no one is comfortable with. This seems to be his trademark and I for one can appreciate it because it shows that the inter-doctrinal battles are in the truest sense Beside the Point. This comforts me greatly as I’ve been exposed to some Hyper-Calvinists lately and it rocked my boat. I imagine that Wright, if pressed say on any matter of controversy, would begin something like “When one understands this within the framework of…” and you can picture the questioner’s brow furrowing as he is forced to look at the issue from a new and deeper perspective and will not be getting a juicy quote to stir up trouble. I do wonder if the ambiguity we discover in the Bible is just that: us not getting the deeper meaning much like our inability to comprehend wave-particle duality because it doesn’t fit into our simplistic understanding of matter as “hard stuff” (actually it’s 99.9999% nothing).
Listening today to Wright’s talk on Romans for the second time I was glad I was not physically present but cauld pause and rewind my MP3 player to get what he was saying again. If I wasn’t driving at the time I would have been reaching for pen and paper the information content is that dense and brilliant.
Many people find the idea of God ridiculous and have sought to explain why people believe such “strange things”. In the past Sigmund Freud and Ludwig Feuerbach theorized that religion is some sort of remnant from primitive culture which was due to fade away as man became enlightened. Today such theories have been discredited by anthropologists who analysed the methods and evidence then employed and found them wanting. Aside from this man has been “enlightened” for more than a century now and religion is showing no signs of disappearing.
Contemporary atheist writers such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet have therefore attempted to describe and explain belief in God as some sort of “mental illness”, a “meme” which has been contracted similar to a disease or otherwise explain using naturalistic mechanisms why believers are poor, er, souls, to be pitied because they cannot do any better. Such thinkers believe that religion can be biologised and thus discredited. So what do believers have to say about this?
An initial, not-so-obvious failure with this line of attack is that you can’t discredit an idea by showing why people believe it. When you prove that kids believe certain things only because their parents tell them you have not proved that these things are in fact untrue. What you have done is show that their belief is not rational – i.e. that it lacks valid reasons: age of claimant (parent) is not considered compelling reason in scientific arenas. This may cast doubt on the beliefs but unless the actual belief is examined it cannot be discounted.
Aside from this there is the more interesting backlash for atheists and naturalists in general. If a belief or idea is invalidated because of it’s having arisen by natural causes, which beliefs or ideas are valid? The answer is of course “none” because they all arose that way (in the naturalists view).
Atheism and naturalism in general has severe problems with explaining rational thought. If my thoughts and yours are just the product of chemical and electrical impulses in our pulpy brains why should we trust them? A neuron misfires and I could be believing nonsense! Alas, all is nonsense in a world which lacks an Ultimate Rational Agent (URA). Naturalism offers no basis for rational thought indeed there is no place for rationality on the naturalist view: if atoms are not rational then objects made (by irrational processes) of atoms cannot be rational. One way out of this uncomfortable corner is to say that certain organisations of matter constitute rationality. Sounds great but this is to smuggle in an external standard by which rationality can be judged. Why is this pile of carbon irrational but this pile of carbon (man) rational? By the naturalist view the idea of rationalism is a non-entity which cannot be verified without appeal to an external standard (our URA).
Aside from the speculation of popular contemporary writers we have little evidence that people believe in God based on some genetic configuration. Believers often come from unbelieving families or live in cultures which believe completely differently or are even hostile towards believers. It is true that belief is often “inherited” in the sense that children inherit certain values from their parents by seeing them lived. Most people however call this “education” and not “genetic inheritance” as it arises after conception at which point a child’s DNA is separate and independent of its parents. One-armed war veterans do not beget one-armed children ;-)
If, at some time in the future, investigators would discover a gene which “enabled” belief in God I would indeed become thoughtful. Are all my thoughts controlled by my genes? I find the possibility fantastic (in the wild, improbable sense) because there simply aren’t enough genes to control the myriad of beliefs people have. Is there a gene which makes people believe in “green monkey-aliens named Sebastian who live on planet ZuTo on Richard Dawkins’ left shoe on Tuesday afternoons”? Of course not – beliefs arise during our lifetimes. If I am wrong on this then all belief and rational thought becomes invalid. Our beliefs are not “reasoned” but “imposed” by irrational forces. All belief systems, atheism included would be in ruins.
Postscript
22 September 2008: According to Philosopher Alvin Plantinga and many evolutionists – Naturalistic process like evolution cannot be guaranteed to produce true beliefs because true beliefs do not necessarily confer survivability. This means that, for the naturalist, our beliefs are here because they help us survive and not because they are true – veracity is a side-effect. Our rationality has evolved to help us survive and not to help us discover uncomfortable truths and thus we have no basis for assuming our reason is helping us decide truth rather than decide safe.
