Tuesday, September 15, 2009

In the weekend Wall Street Journal there was a two page "Man vs. God" article featuring on the atheist side, Richard Dawkins, a respected physicist and Karen Armstrong, a noted theologian. I have read Dawkins' book, The God Delusion. It is a book I would not recommend for those weak in faith. His arguments could well quench faith in folks. It is about Ms. Armstrong’s article that I write today. It was great. Here are some quotes: "But Darwin may have done religion--and God--a favor by revealing a flaw in modern Western faith. Despite our scientific and technological brilliance, our understanding of God is often remarkably undeveloped--even primitive."

In the 17th century Christians began to read scripture with a literalness that is without parallel in religious history. Most cultures believed that there were two recognized ways of arriving at truth. The Greeks called them mythos and logos. Both were essential and neither was superior to the other. They were not in conflict but complementary. Logos was reason. It was the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled us to function effectively in the world and had therefore, to correspond accurately to external reality. But it could not explain or help human grief or find ultimate meaning in life's struggle. For that people turned to mythos, stories that made no pretensions to historical accuracy but should rather be seen as an early form of psychology; if translated into ritual or ethical action, a good myth showed you how to cope with mortality, discover an inner source of strength, and endure pain and sorrow.

Religion was not supposed to provide explanations that lay within the competence of reason but to help us live creatively with realities for which there are no easy solutions and find an interior haven of peace; today, however, many have opted for unsustainable certainty instead. When authors like Dawkins attack relgious faith or a belief in God, it is the "unsustainable certainty" that he is attacking, and frankly, that is good. The good news for us is that the God he is attacking doesn't exist. When I talk to people who say they don't believe in God, I ask them to describe the God they don't believe in and discover that they have described a God that in fact doesn't exist. When I tell them that, they are relieved! But then they ask about the God that does exist and I have to use words like "the God beyond God." Now we get into religious philosophy which will leave all of us beaten but better.

Thus we have the stories of the Old and New Testament. When we take many of them literally, we make an idol out of certainty and thus violate the first commandment. What does it mean "Christ is Risen!"? Read the New Testament and all the disciples knew that Jesus had risen, but they all described the experience differently. We don't on Easter go and "prove" that Jesus rose from the dead, we proclaim his resurrection, and each worshiper lets the proclamation work it mysterious wonders in each of them.

Ms. Armstrong will be publishing her latest book "The Case for God" later this month. I will be buying a copy.