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The more I read the Bible and the more I read (and learn from) Reformed Theologians, the more I realise I don’t fit in into the category of a Reformed Christian…
Reformed Christian
God, you are so Infinitely Holy that you cannot tolerate sin. All are sinners and are utterly unacceptable, Totally Depraved, and displeasing to you, Objects of Wrath. The right and holy and just thing to do is to Punish Sinners and your infinite nature requires you punish infinitely, damning all people to Hell. This alone is so glorious that we can only praise you for your Severe Justice, but you top that by going even further and Unconditionally Electing people from this group of hell-fodder for salvation. These you Unilaterally Regenerate and Justify completely apart from who they are or what they’ve done, giving them by Grace a Saving Faith which they could not produce. Because your Grace is not quite free, someone had to pay, so you sent Jesus to be the Substitution of Atonementwhich placates your Wrath. This Grace is not for everytone it’s called Limited Atonement and those elected for Life cannot resist your plan – it’s Irresistible Grace. You are now able to do what was not possible before and Ignore Sin, Counting Sinners as Righteous although they are not sinless. You detest any form of self-righteousness and want people to rely on your justification instead of trying to be good. When the time comes for all to be judged, you will count them as perfect (Imputation) because you will see only Christ’s obedience and look over their own disobedience. Those not elected by you for salvation will endure Eternal Conscious Torment in Hell whilst the elect will necessarily and deterministically Perservere as Saints to enjoy Paradise for ever. What counts is Doctrines Believed, the key to Good Religion is Justification by Faith, all authority grounded in Scripture.
Transformed Disciple
God you are so Infinitely Loving that you cannot allow sin to continue it’s damaging hold on your Human Creatures whom you made in your Image to Reflect your Glory into Creation. You sent your only Son as a fateful messenger who Fully Reveals God, the embodiment of who you are. You allowed him to be crucified as a Transformative Symbol of how you Condemn Sin and will destroy all evil and as an echo through history of how Man Rejected God. More than that, his blood was the Pledge a Promise to Forgive Our Sins. You want us to make Disciples of All Men so that all can know the Forgiveness Accessible to Any and All who would turn (Repent) and ask for it. You are not a respecter of status but deal with each Valuable Person according to how they live and treat others, not looking to their past failings but eagerly anticipating their future under your Reign. You graciously Pour out Your Spirit so that we can begin to be Conformed to the Image of Jesus and be freed from the power of sin. You then Proclaim our Right Standing in your sight, proof of our Adoption as Sons and Daughters, and of your Covenantal Faithfulnessto Israel. You promised to bless the world through Abraham’s Seed and your Church is not only the recipient of blessing but the Instrument of Blessing, as Christ’s body, by which your Justice, Peace and Love are multiplied and fulfilled in the World Today. You begin a Good Work in us as we Participate in your Plan which you will complete so that, at the final judgement, you will be able to truly say of us “well done, good and true servant, you worked well, fought the good fight and will inherit the Kingdom”. As Loving Creatoryour plan is not to destory the physical world but to Bury, Resurrect and Renew it so that your promises to Bless all Nations and Restore Creation will come to fulfillment and your appointed Lord, the Messiah, will bring your Rule On Earth as it is in Heaven. What counts is Faithful Allegiance, the key to Good Religion is Active Love for You and Your Creatures, all authority belongs to Jesus.
Is Anything Real?
As a starting point let us consider the nature of the universe, the external world. What we see around us, that which is independent of our minds we westerners call reality. We assume it’s real but eastern religions would disagree. The question is thus: is the external world we perceive real?
- No, it’s an illusion, my private dream
- Yes, it’s real, independent of us
In Buddhism and Hinduism nothing we see is real. There is no you, no me, no pain, just illusion and, at the end of the day, we all get absorbed into an undifferentiated oneness called Nirvana. I find this absurd, illogical, unlivable and unverifiable. Anyone can say that I and my perceptions are unreal or illusory but no one could prove it. I could easily retort: “that which you call an illusion, I call reality” and we could fight about definitions and names. Or, I could lean on Descartes and say “Cogito, ergo sum” – Because I think, I exist. Even if what I see is an illusion, I still must exist in order to perceive the illusion AND something else probably exists to provide the illusion (I cannot be the deceived, deceiver and the deception).
I think the successes of science in predicting our external reality’s operation as well as common sense do away with any religion or philosophy which rejects ultimate mind-independent reality. I also think the fact that Buddhists look both ways before crossing the street speaks for an external, non-debateable reality ;-)
Is the External Physical World All of Reality?
All other religions have the basic, reasonable assumption that the universe is real and exists. Here we have another major branch based on the following question.
Is the world we can sense all there is?
- Naturalism: Yes, the material world is all there is. Matter, energy that’s it.
- Supernaturalism: No, there is more: spirit, God, eternity.
Naturalism has the following problems:
- Time cannot be explained in terms of matter and energy and yet, according to Einstein it is real and, according to Big Bang, it had a beginning
- Physical laws, like gravity, are clearly real (not mind tricks) and yet, they are neither matter nor energy. In modern times we have begun to see that Information also falls into this category of being non-physical and yet essential for explaining the universe.
- Naturalism cannot explain itself. We know that the universe had a beginning but we know that matter and energy cannot be produced from nothing – only transformed.
We thus have a philosophy which cannot explain itself and offers only a partial, albeit useful, perspective and description of the world.
Inferring the Supernatural
The word “supernatural” conjures up ideas of UFOs, magic and other esoteric “powers”. However, all it means is that there are real things which are not physical. We call them supernatural not because they are somehow unnatural but because they transcend the material world we call Nature consisting of matter and energy. A spirit has no mass or volume, exists not in time nor can be measured by physical instruments.
How do we know that anything other than Nature exists?
- Nature and natural laws had a beginning approximately 14 billion years ago yet cannot have started themselves – Natural laws and entities cannot create themselves (The Law of Energy Conservation).
- We see a progression in the universe’s history from disorder and simplicity to the order and complexity of life today. This goes against the nature of matter and energy which tends to become more orderly (The Law of Entropy).
- We discern within ourselves something which is more than chemicals and atoms, something with a will and consciousness which cannot be simulated or created with any amount of technology nor be explained or predicted. We are spiritual beings with minds and wills which are housed in but not dependant on our bodies (The Spirit).
We have therefore, good reason to suspect something else exists other than the measurable material world. Atheists and Materialists may say that we cannot measure or investigate the afterlife and thus it does not exist but this is also a mistake: we cannot assume something does not exist just because we can’t measure it. In fact, it’s impossible to prove that something does not exist since we are not all-knowing. On the contrary, all we know points to something more than nature!
Starting from scratch the odds of an afterlife are perhaps 50/50. The odds that something supernatural started what we call “nature” are, as I have argued, very high if not 100% certain. Science tells us that nature cannot cause nature and thus we have good cause to invoke supernaturalism.
God: Personal or Non-Personal
Although we’ve not yet used the word “God” that’s where we are now: everything we know has a cause and was created and if we trace them all back through the eons we must arrive at a First Cause. This creative force we call “God” even if, as the deists content, it is just a force and not a personal being.
One might reasonably ask: why should this force not just be a power or gas. What makes us think God is the grey-bearded bully we read about in the Bible or other holy books? What makes us think this amazing creative force should be interested in what we do, think or eat? This is a good question.
I agree that to say God is a person like us is probably incorrect – but the solution is not to make him impersonal – to take him down a notch. We know personality is more complex, advanced and progressive than impersonal stuff like rocks and to make God impersonal is to imply that we persons are above him. The God I know and believe in is more than personal: a person yet transcending the personalities we know in each other.
Describing God
I think therefore we have good reason to believe that nature is not all that there is, that God started all we see and that he is personal. We cannot see him because he is spirit, we cannot find a single simple common religion (description of God) because he is personal and complex just as we cannot find a single simple common description of Abraham Lincoln. We can say true things about God (eternal, creator) just as we can say true things about Abe Lincoln (16th president of the US) but we cannot completely describe this person God because our encounter with him is sublime and personal.
Related Posts
It has been said that there are as many religions, as many gods, as there are people. Obviously atheists and other non-religious folk would disagree but the point is plain:
- There are lots of religions
- Even within religions, conceptions of God differ
We thus ask ourselves: why should this be and what does it mean. I see 3 clear reasons why religious concepts abound:
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Religions are complex ideas
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Religions are descriptive
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Religions describe the intangible
Religions are complex ideas
Unlike simple concepts like arithmetic we cannot describe a religion’s premise in one sentence and devise an experiment to test it.
Religions are descriptive
Religions are rarely hypothetical theories but descriptions of God and the supernatural. Humans hardly ever agree on descriptions of things. Try describing your best friend Peter to someone and see how another person would describe them – there will be some overlap (he is a 27 year old Male) but not 100% consensus. There may even be disagreement and contradiction (IS Peter a funny guy?).
Religions describe the intangible
Religions deal mainly with subjects which cannot be contained in a laboratory and tested. We’re dealing with the meaning and purpose of life, the nature of humanity, the afterlife, morality and the nature of God. We can’t test these things once and for all and resolve differing views.
Thus, because religions are complex, descriptive and (mostly) unverifiable we can expect many differing views. (Atheists and agnostics would prefer we be silent on such issues and are irritated that religions proclaim with certainty what is, in the agnostics eyes, pure speculation.)
What Does All This Mean?
Now, what shall we conclude concerning the multiplicity of religions:
- All are equally true (Pluralism)
- All are equally false (Classic Atheism)
- All are equally indeterminate (Agnosticism)
- Each should be analysed logically and evidentially
My (potentially unpopular) answer would be 4: we need to look at religions individually. Only laziness or ignorance could answer otherwise. It may not be easy but all other answers have serious problems:
- The religions cannot all be true because they contradict each other. Christianity says that Jesus was crucified and Islam denies this. Buddhism says (in effect) that God does not exist or is impersonal, Islam says he is One and impersonal and Christianity says he is personal and triune (three persons, one being). They can’t all be right.
- The religions cannot all be false because the evidence for the theism as opposed to atheism is overwhelming (admittedly not all religions are theistic). I am not aware of any new evidence in favour of the no-God hypothesis except that it’s trendy and considered “intellectual” to be an atheist. To KNOW that there is no God you’d have to know everything about everything. The folks who say all religions are false cannot have analysed all religions due to the sheer number. The “all are false” conclusion is rash, arrogant and ignorant.
- The agnostic stance is untenable in my opinion because it results not from careful consideration but from ignorance and laziness. It also seems illogical to say “I KNOW that WE CANNOT (or do not) know”.
I believe we can and should consider each religion on it’s merits, group similar ones to keep the workload down and use common sense to find likely candidates. We should not let the multiplicity of ideas force us to assume all are right or wrong just as we should not assume the millions of numbers mean that 1 + 1 cannot be solved. Some things, like reality, are either true or false and not a matter of taste.
