on being a skeptical believer: chaos

this past couple of weeks have been hectic partly because my sister and brother-in-law lost their baby and anne and i have been travelling across the state to see them and attend the funeral. i'm not complaining. i feel horrible for them, and strongly desired to be with them in the midst of this. and it was incredibly emotionally draining for my wife, so i also wanted to be there for her. their whole experience is tragic, and it eerily co relates with a lot of things that have been on my mind. throughout human history, people have struggled to live often losing child after child. it's been only recent that medical technology has lessened the infant mortality rate in our world. and as someone who loves history and realizes all of this, and in watching them suffer, i have been constantly aware of how chaotic our world really is. these thoughts constantly whipped through my mind as i sat through the funeral and listened to their pastor struggle to find meaning in this loss. not to be narcissistic, but in an odd way their whole experience embodied many of the questions i have been wrestling with lately.

in the past few weeks, i have been obsessed with watching debates online. and not just any debates, but ones featuring the journalist, literary and social critic, christopher hitchens. i admit, i have a bit of a man-crush on hitchens. not just because he's brilliant and amazingly well-read and articulate, but because he's hilarious as well and his presentations are as entertaining as they are informative. hitchens recently penned a book called God is not great: how religion poisons everything. after writing this book he has embarked across the country debating various theologians, apologists, scholars and rabbis. i first watched him debate the microbiologist and oxford professor of historical theology, alister mcgrath. knowing mcgrath's credentials and that he has written several books refuting atheism, i expected him to mop the floor with hitchens. much to my surprise the reverse was true, and i was shocked at how foolish mcgrath looked. other debates i watched were between rabbi shmuley boteach and dinesh d'souza. there are actually several with d'souza, and i think he's faired the best. but some of hitchens arguments really bother me, and i've been finding myself arguing with him in my head ever since i began to watch.

my foundational belief for why i believe in God is that there is something rather than nothing. there is order in the midst of chaos. our universe has laws that can be articulated in mathematical language, and our earth exists against tremendously unthinkable odds. now this doesn't necessarily mean that the God of the bible is the intelligence responsible for our universe. that belief i base on the story of the jewish people laid out in scripture, and how that story, once again, despite inconceivable odds, shouldn't have even existed, and yet has changed the world. furthermore, even though there were countless jewish messiahs who were crucified by rome, one of them created a movement that some how flourished even after he was crucified. to me, the story of our universe, human history, and jesus all seem to have the same force driving them.

hitchen's argument, however, is so what? our planet occupies a vast universe full of failed solar systems that didn't give such a result. in focusing on the order, we ignore all the immense chaos that exists. we ignore that fact that we've had meteors crash into our planet or whizz right by us. we ignore the fact that in a few billion years our sun will burn out or the andromeda galaxy will collide with ours rendering us a frozen scorched rock and nothingness and chaos will be our reality again, just like it was in the preceding billions of years before the big bang. we're just a tiny speck in an enormous, dangerous chaotic universe. our existence is a blip in the history of the universe. as hitchens puts it, "we exist on a knife's edge. some design..."

why did my brother and sister in law's baby die? so that God could glorify himself? really? babies have been dying for thousands of years. was God just glorifying himself then? as i sat in that funeral listening to their pastor plumb the depths for meaning in this all too common-- in fact way more common than not-- situation, i couldn't help but think, "are we just bullshitting ourselves?" chaos really seems to have the upper hand. order really seems to be unfathomably rare-- so rare that maybe it is all just a fluke.

so here i sit. i don't have a good answer for this. these are the hard questions, and i think back to my high school days pissed off at myself at how cocky and certain i was. and it frustrates me even more when i hear christians, just as cocky and ignorant as i once was, dismiss these arguments. because at the very least, in wrestling with them, i am ever more aware of just how good, exceptional and precious this life is. and just how much i truly have to rely on faith.

on being a skeptical believer: evolution

i've been thinking about evolution in relation to the idea of general revelation. general revelation, as i understand it, is God revealing himself in the created universe. "the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth is handiwork" and the part in acts where paul says that God has revealed himself in nature are two places in scripture that i know of that teach this idea.

creationists and intelligent design theorists point out that the design in creation reveals that the universe is the product of a designer. i've heard creationists talk at length about the eye, or bees, and how they demonstrate the extraordinary design found in creation. but what about evolution? even young earth creationists acknowledge the reality of some evolution, even if they refuse to acknowledge it from species to species. and everyone has to acknowledge evolution in general. everything evolves in some way. take the car for instance. the design of the car has evolved from what it was in the 1930's to what it is today. evolved? yes, evolved. developers and engineers, as time went by, were faced with different challenges and problems which caused them to create new technologies which caused the design of the car to evolve. most recently we've seen the hybrid and the plug in car designed in response to concerns about global warming and foreign oil. this is what evolution is: an organism, thing, design, whatever, is faced with an obstacle and it either dies or changes to continue on in its existence.

so what does this reality tell us about God? if all reality is created by God and said reality reveals who God is, then does the fact that matter tends to change, and when it changes transcends what it was before, tell us something about God? i think it does. this is how order comes from chaos, which is what the genesis creation story describes in its opening verses. or think about the hebrew people. God chose them, set them apart from the chaotic and destructive practices of their neighboring cultures and began forming them into his people. it didn't happen over night; it was a process. he took abram from the primordial, pagan, cultural soup he was in; and told him he would make him into a nation that would bless the nations.

i think the design and laws we see in the world around tell us something about God, but i also think that the way this design and these laws come about-- process and evolution-- also tell us about God. in my struggle with faith and doubt, evolution was something that shook me hard, and continues to shake young christians who grow up believing that evolution equals atheism. i disagree. evolution is everywhere and is something theists and christians should embrace.

on being a skeptical believer: beyond survival

everyone agrees that people are selfish, and that our basic instinct is survival and self-preservation. much of the time, the decisions we make are made so that we benefit in some way. in fact, the main driver of evolution is survival-- species adapt to survive. so a question i constantly find myself asking is: what if this is all just a survival mechanism? "this" meaning belief in God, and, in my case, christianity.

i've heard it argued that if one takes away the belief in God and the consequence of going to hell, then it would render all of life meaningless, and such a person could do whatever he or she wants. but this just isn't true is it? there are many atheists in this world, and probably most of them are quite moral people. but the argument is silly for other reasons as well. i've read somewhere that if a chimpanzee living, in whatever a chimpanzee community is called, starts going crazy and hurting other chimps, that the entire community will attack and kill the offending chimp. so apparently even chimps have a moral code. this is because we need morals or laws for our survival. if i want to live, one of the ways i can go about doing that is to make a deal with my fellow humans that i won't kill them if they won't kill me. that's called a law. yet humans aren't just individuals, humans are families, cultures, societies, nations, races, and a species. and survival is also driving the existence of the groups people live in, and ultimately the human race. families maintain their line; cultures are passed down; nations conquer other nations. and if humans want to survive as a whole, then humans must become organized and unified. one mechanism that accomplishes this task is religion. religion not only unifies, but it enhances laws. it turns laws into morals and values. if a person violates a law, then that person not only violates a law, but sins against the god of his people.

but the gospel of christ is different, right? the gospel is grounded in love, and not just any love, but agape. and agape is a self-sacrificial love. in other words, agape says we should give up our own happiness, and even our own survival, for others. jesus says, "greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." this would really seem to run counter to the idea that religion is just merely a survival mechanism. but in thinking about this, i wasn't so sure. what if this is really about the survival of the human species? that we all have to give up something, sometimes our own life, for the survival of the human race? i've read somewhere that some scientists theorize that love evolved in mammals from the instinct that a mother has to protect her young. and while this picture of a mother protecting her young is beautiful to us and seemingly selfless, it's really about the survival of that species. it's actually somewhat selfish. didn't somewhere jesus liken himself to a mother hen giving up her life to protect her chicks? it seemed that you could really make a strong case that christianity is just another religion, and like all religions, it is nothing more than a grand evolutionary survival mechanism. then yesterday, i started thinking about something.

in the adam and eve story, adam and eve already had survival; they had the opportunity to eat from a "tree of life." in the story, however, they choose to walk away from this life they had where they lived in shalom with God, one another and creation, and become autonomous. they choose this path where they stop depending upon God, and instead decide that they want to make the decision about what is good and what is evil. after they do this, God blocks them from eating of the tree of life. why? one theory is that if they continue to live forever, they will do so living in the destructive consequences of their sin. their life would extend infinitely into a perpetual death. thus, in allowing them to die, God is actually having mercy on them.

sometimes it's just better to die. sometimes survival just isn't worth it. that is why people fight for the right to die. what the gospel is about isn't survival; it's about eternal life. and eternal life isn't just about quantity-- living forever-- it's about quality. deep inside all of us, we have this remnant of eden. we have this notion that there is some sort of ultimate existence; this ultimate way to live. we are all striving not to just survive-- survival is just a layer; a first step-- we are striving to live a life we cannot even put into words. and the gospel, the kingdom of God, is a glimpse into that better way of living that extends infinitely into the presence of God, who is the ultimate source of life.

so that's where i am now in my journey of faith and doubt. i'll post more as i continue thinking.

on being a skeptical believer : complexity

reality is complex. there are different levels, and layers to everything. for example, there is the layer of reality that i can experience with my five senses, and there are multiple other layers that i can't e.g. the micro level. right now, there are sounds all around me from all over the world being carried by radio waves, that i can only experience with a radio. and like the fact that there is only so much i can experience, measure and test with my five senses, science is, ultimately, limited. so there are levels of reality that science is not ever able to test.

thinking about this has brought me to conclude that maybe the guy in the legion story was schizophrenic, and being controlled by a demon. recently, a guest teacher at my church mentioned that research has been done in the psycho-social field concerning the psychological damage caused by oppressive regimes. this adds another layer to this example. a person could be affected psychologically by sociological factors. all this to say that i think beings who operate on scientifically unmeasurable levels use natural phenomena to interact with this level of reality.

the ancients, with their apocalyptic worldview, simply cut to the chase.

on being a skeptical believer : doubts

last year, i wrote a post called "on being a skeptical believer." in it, i talked about my struggle with believing some of the more supernatural and mythical stuff in the bible. i also talked about my evolving faith. i think it's time for an update. i was going to post this all in one entry, but there is just too much to say, so i'm going to start by laying out reasons i struggle with doubt.
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in the year 2000 i had my first really big faith crisis. i started going online and reading all sorts of atheist websites, and was faced with arguments and ideas that i had never heard before. it was the beginning of a journey that led me away from the pre-packaged christianity i had been handed as a child and toward developing my own personal faith. according to fowler's stages of faith, i had entered stage four. this first faith crisis scared me and made me wonder how long i would remain a christian. however, since the beginning of this journey, i have learned that faith crises are part of it, and i now have them quite regularly.

my recent faith crisis was sparked by a comment that joe left on my other blog, asking me about my take on satan and demons. he asked me this because i mentioned that, while i struggle with my understanding of satan and demons, greg boyd is encouraging to me because he is an ivy league trained theologian and scholar who views them as literal beings. as i thought about how or if i would respond to joe, i decided to pick up greg boyd's book, letters from a skeptic which is, basically, a series of letters between him and his agnostic father. there's a part in the book where boyd discusses his view that there are evil cosmic forces at work in the world and points out that most of reality is made up of things we can't see. he also says that the world is, essentially, a cosmic battlefield. also, boyd points out that we-- modern people-- are the weird ones, because everyone else throughout the ages have believed in gods and evil spirits.

i agree, that it is entirely possible that there are evil spirits, and i also agree that the naturalist/materialist worldview that westerners hold is just that, another worldview, and we make the assumption that there isn't other forces or beings that exist. but isn't that the point? ancient people, and people ignorant of science, explain things they don't understand with supernatural explanations. for example, blessing someone after she sneezes comes from the belief that the act of sneezing was the release of an evil spirit. the belief in micro-organisms was once controversial because it contradicted the belief that sickness was caused by spiritual forces. so imagine a schizophrenic person living in, say, 50 B.C. how would schizophrenia be understood? as a mental illness? of course not. if you lived back then and you heard voices, people wouldn't believe there was something wrong with your brain, there would be a supernatural explanation. the universe is an incredibly amazing place, and the brain is arguably the most complex structure in it. is the reason everyone has believed in the supernatural up until the age of science because there was no other explanation?

another argument boyd puts forth is the argument for the existence of God from morality. this is also how c.s. lewis begins mere christianity. the gist of the argument is that because we intuitively know that murder or stealing is wrong, then there must be an ultimate source for that morality, namely God. but here's my problem. isn't much of our basic moral ideals rooted in self-preservation and our own happiness? we all agree not to murder because we, ourselves, don't want to be murdered. we essentially say, "ok, i'll allow you to live, if you allow me to live." the same goes for stealing. we make an agreement to allow each other to keep our own stuff. if someone breaks that agreement, then we get pissed. we then assign religious meaning to these rules and agreements to reinforce them

to close, i'll go back to the original topic of demons, which sparked all of this. i'm not sure that scripture itself views demons as literal beings. my prime example is the story of jesus casting out the demons collectively named "legion." this story is loaded with symbolism. first, the name legion is what an army of roman soldiers were called. second, jesus casts "legion" into a herd of pigs which were considered unclean according to jews. third, the pigs then drown in the sea, which immediately would conjure up images of the egyptian soldiers drowning in the red sea. so, is this a literal, just-telling-the-facts, recounting of actual events; or is the story saying that jesus is the messiah who will ultimately do away with the roman empire? or, was there really an exorcism, but the author took artistic liberty and added the symbolism?