Is “Christian” Christian?

Jason moofangChristianity

Not too long ago I attended an innocuous sounding event called Pray Singapore with a couple of my cell-group mates. The idea on the banner was to get an ambitious cross-denominational gathering of 50 thousand Christians into the National Stadium to pray for the well-being of Singapore. That sounded benign enough and I didn’t think much about it, but halfway through the proceedings up on the thronging stands of the stadium I found myself adrift in a wash of uncertainty. It is not my intention to talk specifics about that particular event here, rather I want to muse on the question that on that day loomed large in the horizons of my mind – what does/should being Christian really mean?

The great problem with the word “Christianity” of course is that it is a word, and like all words it is a constant symbol while the reality it is meant to reference tends to be amorphous. When society at large contemplates “Christianity”, it is unsurprising that it should seize on the most tangible and thus external appearances of it. A Christian is one who goes to church, or prays at meals, who states belief that Jesus was crucified and is risen, or who has undergone the ritual of Baptism and partakes in the Holy Communion. All very well, except that if Christianity is also a system of thought and a perspective on life, then all of these outer actions – being outer – are insufficient as determinants. The result is what we see often enough today – that two Christians may have drastically different de-facto understandings of life and how we ought to live it.

Now I’m not concerned about how society ought to deal with this problem of definitions – nor do I think it is its duty to. Rather, I would like to address the Christian. If I am a Christian, I have a stake in the question of whether my own Christian life (or at any rate what I consider as such) is properly and sufficiently aligned with what God and the Spirit wills for me. How can I find out if this is so?

If I am a Christian, I have a stake in the question of whether my own Christian life (or at any rate what I consider as such) is properly and sufficiently aligned with what God and the Spirit wills for me

Well certainly the first step is to actually ask the question. Passivity, even passivity in church, must surely be fertile material for the Enemy’s work. For just as the grace of Christ seeks to guide even the deepest sinner towards redemption, so do the temptations of the Enemy seep even into the sacred spaces of the house of God. It doesn’t take a bad church nor a malicious pastor to lead one astray – our own natural prejudices coupled with non-vigilance will do it. Asking the question turns us into introspective creatures – in order to begin answering the question of whether my life is as God wills, I must naturally first begin examining my life. The light of conscious scrutiny reduces the shadows in which the Enemy’s influences may hide. We must be individually wary, and never suppose that we are fine merely because we are part of a group. God’s purpose hangs upon each of us uniquely, and so paying attention to our own personal devotional life must certainly be critical to our ability to respond.

..positions claimed as being “Christian” have become quite alarmingly fragmented

The further danger of group mentality, particularly in today’s climate, is that of importing and uncritically adopting issues and positions ostensibly labeled “Christian” as our own. There may have been a kinder time when this was relatively harmless, but today it no longer is, as positions claimed as being “Christian” have become quite alarmingly fragmented. In some circles it has become intensely political, having become bundled with and gerrymandered alongside various unrelated – and sometimes toxic – issues, and in others it has become placidly thin: merely a veneer and wrapping over ordinary life with no true flavor. Vigilance on this front has, I think, become obligatory. We must take each issue and each social belief and each political position and scrutinize them individually, and ask of each “does this agree with my own understanding of Christianity?” Of course, for many issues this question will prove very difficult to answer, but the important thing here again is to begin to ask the question. We must seek to find – we cannot hope for answers except that we knock, and sometimes insistently.

That is certainly not to say that we don’t have help. And this is perhaps the most important part – the New Testament is required reading, and must be required reading (*). Not merely in quotes and excerpts, and not only in commentaries and sermons (though there are very good ones) – but in its original entirety. The Gospels are full accounts of events – stories, and the epistles are fully composed letters. While quotes and excerpts have their value, one cannot possibly think to know the contents of such things properly without reading each sequentially and wholly. The nature of our psychology tends us towards cherry-picking parts of Scripture – even verbatim verses – that fit most snugly into our worldview while unconsciously allowing the things in between to slowly thin out with the wash of time. In the long run, if we are not careful, we may mistake merely the collection of bits we remember for Scripture itself, and this would be a fatal mistake. We don’t often easily remember (and newer Christians may not even properly know) the sprawling complexity of Jesus’ voluminous and varied discourses hidden under the accessible language of the Gospels. We must vigilantly remind ourselves. What we must be on our guard against is taking the “Christian-ness” of our life and perspectives for granted when we have really only been basing it on scattered memories, common platitudes or “given” group ideas. We are the final gatekeeper of our own souls, and so we owe it to ourselves to reread the full books as we progress through stages in life, that we may compare anew the unique questions and challenges we face with the best known records of our Lord’s life and teachings.

In the long run, if we are not careful, we may mistake merely the collection of bits we remember for Scripture itself

Of course, like with most temptations, we must also guard against the opposite vice. While group mentality has its dangers, Scripture makes it clear that the Christian life is a communal life. The dangers of community is not to be combated with withdrawal. It may be tempting to some to become detached, to call the church hypocritical and its members misguided as we weave our own gleaming theories about what the right Christian life is about. However, apart from causing us to miss out on chances to serve in ways only possible with a community of believers, withdrawal also ultimately deprives us of the real test of our Christianity – the living, writhing, responding thing that is other people. It is easy to put hypothetical people into neat little boxes – real people have a tendency to step all over our existing ideas of them. But that is how we learn. That is how our own devotional lives can evolve. That is how our attempts at Godly obedience can be challenging and renewing. There are certainly good and bad churches and good and bad communities, and we do often have the privilege of choosing the community to which we will presently belong, but it is important to actually choose and then belong. The branch must live upon the vine.

..real people have a tendency to step all over our existing ideas of them. But that is how we learn

Of course, after all of that I have said very little about what sort of Christianity I myself consider as properly Christian – but if I had, I would have merely joined a chorus of dissonant voices already out there. Perhaps what’s more important is conscious seeking on the part of each individual Christian – we must find our own answers. In this endeavor, the greatest comfort is that some of the most basic doctrines of the faith are true. Obedience and sincere surrender really does bring us closer to the Eternal Father. Death to the self really does lead to rebirth in Truth, and God really does open Himself unto those who unreservedly and earnestly seek Him. And so we ought to seek with abandon! We lie to ourselves often enough, but God and creation isn’t seeking to deceive us. As C.S.Lewis says, the universe rings true whenever you fairly test it.

(*) Of course, I by no means mean to imply that the Old Testament is optional. However I would be ready to admit the complaint that the Old Testament is an exceedingly difficult text, and so the person who only reads it once then mostly waits for his pastor to draw insights from him is probably excusable. The New Testament, in my opinion, does not admit such an excuse.

Flat and Layered Morality

Jason moofangChristianity | Society

“Because the Bible says so!” is a common refrain when a Christian is called to defend a moral point. Predictably, this tends to result in derision from non-believers, and often enough this derision is, I am sad to think, just. “The Bible says so!” is a useful and significant statement so long as it means “here is a relevant biblical passage – we ought to be attentive to it” – and not “here is a relevant biblical passage – no further argument is admissible”. The latter supposes morality as “flat”, in the sense that it is decided unequivocally by single lines or statements without need for any further reference, while the former admits the possibility of “layers” – for eg. delving beyond the simple wording into the context of the passage, comparing with other related texts, considering its integration into a larger system of moral thought, etc.

Making this distinction is useful so that we might be more cognizant of our own approaches to thinking about morality vis-a-vis Scripture, and so that we can compare the merits of both approaches. Many Christians, I think, tend to find themselves in “flat” territory, and it may not be clear why this might be problematic or dangerous. Especially since the alternative – the “layered” approach – may seem to lack the solidity of straightforward Scriptural backing and thus seem uncertain, and suspiciously close to secular thought.

there is simply no way to say that Scripture must be taken absolutely literally in its entirety without reducing it to absurdity

However there are several reasons why “flat” reasoning in morality is pretty much untenable on scrutiny, at least on a Christian perspective. In the first place, any reasonable student of the Bible must agree that it is an exegetical work – that is to say, it is a work that requires interpretive effort to make sense of. It is no real secret that Scripture contradicts itself variously when taken in the most literal, non-contextual sense, and so there is simply no way to say that Scripture must be taken absolutely literally in its entirety without reducing it to absurdity. This is the insurmountable wall that confronts any radically fundamentalist position.

Now if the Bible is indeed an exegetical work, then it becomes necessary by default to ask deeper questions about any particular part of text we are presently interpreting. What and for whom is it written for. When is it written. What is its relative importance compared to other parts of Scripture. Asking questions like these is the essence of exegesis. Accordingly when we settle for one particular interpretation of a bit of Scripture, there must necessarily be reasons for the interpretation – reasons that can be defended or attacked. We do this in fact as part of pretty much standard practice in much of modern Christianity. For eg, we are not normally too fazed by the existence of difficult verses in books like Leviticus because modern Christian exegesis puts Jesus Christ – the living Word – at the forefront of our faith, and thus enables us to prioritize and contextualize the rest of Scripture using the lens of Jesus’ own teaching. When a modern Christian acts, he has the teachings of Christ much closer to his heart than the laws in the Pentateuch. This does not of course mean that Leviticus should be ignored(*), but rather that we must seek an understanding of it that is compatible with Christ – and so think deeper than the mere literal senses of the texts in that book. This is in fact exegesis – and thus layered morality in action.

If a work is exegetical, then it is exegetical all through and it would be silly to suppose that there is some partition that immunizes certain passages from the necessity of interpretation

Being now aware of this, what we must be wary of is “trying to have it both ways”. It may be tempting to think that while “layered” exegesis of Leviticus is justifiable, the words of Christ in the Gospels (say) must be taken at “flat” face-value. If a work is exegetical, then it is exegetical all through and it would be silly to suppose that there is some partition that immunizes certain passages from the necessity of interpretation. At the very least, someone who wants to make a claim like “the words of Christ in the Gospels must be taken in full literalness” must be aware that his claim is in fact itself an act of interpretation, and must thus be as such open to challenges and must be defended with reason. So long as Scripture is exegetical, we can never say that an isolated piece of Scripture is authoritative purely on its own.

So long as Scripture is exegetical, we can never say that an isolated piece of Scripture is authoritative purely on its own.

A little further reflection on God and Scripture will lead us to another reason to be suspicious of “flat” moral judgements. If the revelation of God-given morality happens in bits and pieces scattered across the books of Scripture, then either these revelations are part of a greater integrated Whole, or they are just what they are – disparate pieces. Now, if individual Scriptural verses are absolutely authoritative on their own, then they are disparate pieces – because if they are part of a greater Whole, then it must be meaningful to talk about and interpret them based on their relationship with each other and how they fit together. So either we must abandon “flat” judgement, or we must accept that God’s revelation can show up in absolutely unrelated pieces. But what does it really mean to accept the latter? Can we truly reconcile our belief in one God with N different fully-autonomous rules? It seems to me, no. We say that God is Good, that God is Love – and that naturally implies a kind of unity in His divine Essence. Jesus Himself declared all the Law and the Prophets as derivative of the Great Commandment. We, too, naturally see connections between common moral ideas – I should not commit robbery because hurting my neighbours is bad and because being greedy at my neighbours’ expense is bad because I ought to love my neighbour because love is good. I cannot but think the Glory of God demands a complete Whole, a fuller Splendour that unites all Good in Him. If I am right, then “flat” morality simply cannot hold.

Can we truly reconcile our belief in one God with N different fully-autonomous rules?

Finally, we must consider that “flat” morality alienates unbelievers, while “layered” morality holds out the chance to engage them. Now while some believers may be dismissive of the idea of debating non-believers on stuff like morality, I believe that such dialogue is becoming increasingly critical in our world. I have already previously argued for why it is important for religious voices to join society’s discourses – but this can only happen if discussions can go further than simple appeals to isolated verses. Thankfully, by the arguments above, it seems undeniable that Christian morality at any rate is more nuanced and reasoned than mere “flat”ness. The sense of Scripture delves deeper than its mere words of language. We ought to consider that both you and I are today Christian because, in all likelihood, something about Christianity has appealed to our innate humanity. If Christianity is good and true, then we could expect its ideas to be naturally appealing to any unbiased and sincere human being – and I have great faith that it is.

If our deepest intuitions of Goodness is a part of the image of God imprinted in all of us, we can hope that, properly presented, the ideas of the Christian faith will also resonate with the best intuitions of people who are yet outside the faith. In a time where the foreseeable future remains peppered with likely friction between faithful and secular peoples, our ability to, through our Christian values, hold out resonant appeals to lofty, universally-recognizable goodness will be critical to our ability to anchor the course of human society and defend what is sane and good. God willing, it may also help to bring more into the fold of the Faith – and, chances are, for all the right reasons.

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(*) I should add a little emphasis here to the fact that I don’t for a moment think Scripture is redundant. Just because we shouldn’t take many verses in the Scriptural books of law literally doesn’t mean they deserve no attention. Quite the contrary – the difficulty and complexity of Scripture is fertile grounds for lifelong meditation, prayer, and communal exegesis. Its tendency to stick out in all sorts of unexpected ways help immunize us from the lure of overly simple and “rounded” philosophies. No matter what stage of wisdom we think we have attained, Scripture ensures that new grounds for humility and learning always await our seeking – yet undiscovered, yet richer ways to learn about and interact with our God. This, too, is another wonderful outcome of a “layered” attitude towards Scripture.

Let Religion Speak to the Secular State

Jason moofangSociety | Theism

It is a common point to make nowadays that the state is secular and that religious considerations are thus inadmissible in matters of policy. That there ought to be separation between religion and the state, and religious considerations belong to the personal and/or inner-communal life of the religious, whereas in matters of public import religion ought to be absolutely silent.

Now I have great sympathy for this sentiment. I think it stems from a perspective that is first of all charitable – after all, public affairs necessarily affect the lives of non-religious people as well as practitioners of other religions. No doubt it is in wariness of tyranny by a dominant religious group to the detriment of others that we countenance this idea of strict separation. We suppose it a reasoned compromise for there to be religious freedom in the private affairs of people, but for religiousness to be put away in the larger discourse of society, to avoid the inevitable conflicts of views that would otherwise arise.

Reasonable as this may sound on the surface, I do not think strict, no-questions-asked separation of this sort is ultimately wise(*). For one, it is naive, and perhaps even a little condescending. It tends to cast religion as merely a sort of strange behavioral quirk for which civility demands tolerance. If we are honest, we may even go on to admit (as exemplified by snarky remarks such as this) that we do not suppose that religion contains within it anything of real substance – why else would we not want to hear from it at all in matters of importance?

Religion as a holistic philosophy of life

Against this I shall forward two claims. Firstly, religion – most major religions at any rate – are emphatically not limited nor limitable to the domain of private life. To spend some private moments in prayer, or attending a segment in a place of worship, and then to “switch it off” when returning to “normal life” is entirely against the very nature of most major religions. The whole appeal and usefulness of religion is in its being a holistic philosophy of life – the practitioner ought in principle to be thinking about it at all times, and it ought to have something to say about as many aspects of life and the human condition as possible. That’s the entire point of a religion. Therefore, in order for the religious to hem in their religion in matters of society, there are really only two possibilities: either they must be compelled to such silence by force, or they must cease to be religious in a genuine sense.

Secondly, I will challenge the usually unstated implication that religion has nothing to say that is of worth in the wider social context. When stated explicitly like this, the very idea begins to sound absurd. It again betrays the tendency to think of religion as a sort of embarrassing and archaic quirk or a mere set of fairy-tale mythos, a sentiment that simply would not hold to any real scrutiny. After all, most major religions have centuries – if not millennia – of history of being variously at the forefront of human thought, where they have at different times been vigorously developed as well as harshly challenged by eminent thinkers. It seems to me impossible to deny that the major religions in their surviving forms are significant parts of our intellectual and philosophical heritage. Certainly, there are progressive thinkers today who may, with their own intellectual ammo, reject many of the ideas that are passed down in the religions – and this is perfectly fine. But there ought to be dialogue, is the point. One may seek to refute religious ideas as they are professed by their believers, but I can see no sense in seeking to prevent the professing in the first place.

Religion and the secular – a healthy tension

Let me argue a little more concretely for the substance of religious ideas. Secular morality has a tendency to be comparatively nebulous and fluid. It is actually rather hard on investigation to find a solid basis for a purely secular morality. In the last resort we would probably fall back on a common moral intuition that we use to justify certain far-reaching principles – like human rights. However there aren’t actually too many secular resources that can be employed to defend these principles – if in the last resort moral intuition is merely personally felt, a) how can you be sure that what you built on your intuition matches what I feel in mine? and b) even if we agree on the intuition on what grounds should I be compelled to obey it?

Unsurprisingly, progressive moral ideas tend to be in the direction of loosening rigid traditional standards – and I hasten to add that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Oftentimes the loosening comes as a result of identifying fundamental moral ideas and then recognizing that existing standards are incongruous with them. However, such “debunking” obviously cannot go on forever, there must be a counterbalance that asserts the baseline inviolability of certain ideas, so that there is a rock bottom. The critical apparatus works best when it is dismantling superficial moral standards for deeper, stronger ones – when it is taking apart appearance in service of Truth. But how can we identify these deeper moral Truths? Of course, there is no easy answer, but I think it is fair at least to say that pure secularism is here standing on shaky ground.

On the other hand, properly viewed, religion is an important edifice of the larger philosophical point of view that regards morality as transcendent and divine. It makes it its business precisely to define this baseline while adopting a metaphysic that could justify it. Of course, religious ideas ought not be simply accepted but should be open to challenge, but that is quite exactly the point – religion helps provide the material for the critical apparatus to function. It already has a long track record of doing so, having, as previously noted, been already subject to centuries of debate. There is certainly no reason for the debate to stop now – the best chance for society to remain humane and sane is neither to have limitless skepticism nor settled uncritical belief, but for the two to be in constant, healthy tension.

Let views be aired – and defended and challenged

What, then, of the practical concern that rival religious groups are by definition irreconcilable. How do we accommodate religious views if accommodating one religious view involves violating another rival one? Well, the simple answer is not to accommodate. Let the rival views be aired, and let them be defended and challenged, and then let due democratic process decide what makes it into public policy. What I am here arguing for is really simply a species of freedom of speech: that the secularity of the state should not be invoked to require silence from religious points of view.

I would also go on to point out that there is a desirable effect to the sort of discourse I am advocating – the religious would be incentivized to cast their ideas in more generalized terms and appeal to common thought. After all, simply pointing to a verse in a holy book is not likely to win you support. Practical interpretation and exegesis of religious texts is already a normal operation in most religions anyway, and having the task of convincing a secular audience would encourage the making of more connections between aspects of sacred tradition and common life. On the other hand keeping the religious silo’d in their private lives and forbidding them from participating in public discourse is likely to have the opposite effect and exacerbate the faultline between the religious and secular parts of society. In a real sense, blind faith and fundamentalism are a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.

Atheist thinkers have long labored boldly to demolish the walls that insulate religious people from criticism. If their efforts have produced any fruit, then we certainly ought to apply them in critical examination of religious voices. However in order for that to be possible in the first place, the religious should be encouraged to speak widely and uninhibitedly on all manner of public issues, so long as due process is observed. After all, in accordance with democratic principles, it is through more speech, as Rowan Atkinson says, that we arrive at our best public consensuses.

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(*) To be clear I am here talking primarily of moral issues, and not of things like customs, rituals or purely-religious rules. Happily, these other aspects are not normally controversial – Christians are not usually keen to push the Eucharist ritual on non-believers, and Muslims are not usually concerned to enforce practice of the Salat on non-Muslims. These indeed belong with the private life of worship. It is the aspects of religion that bears on the day-to-day public life of the believer that is of interest here.

Homosexuality – a Christian defense

Jason moofangChristianity | Society

On the subject of homosexuality, I do not here write thinking to add anything novel to what has already been hitherto known and argued. The material is out there, but, perhaps, not numerous nor loud enough, and so I think to add my voice to chorusing what I myself believe with regards to a topic that is still controversial and divisive even among mainstream Christians – indeed even amongst people in the same church and denomination. I think those of us who are able to ought to contribute to the unfolding discourse, and participate as members of the body of Christ as the Church steers its way through these new waters.

Now in discussing whether or not homosexuality is a sin, I should first like to emphatically note that our Lord, in His ministering to the downtrodden, oppressed, and hungry of His time, never counted the sins nor the sinfulness of His charges. He mingled with prostitutes and lepers while rebuking the teachers who disdained Him for it. And so with Christ as our master, be homosexuality a sin or not, there should be no question as to the correct treatment which the Church and her charges owe to homosexual men and women who come to her doors. They must be served, loved, and protected. Any discussion about the sinfulness of homosexuality may only properly proceed after we establish this as a basic consensus.

Now, in considering the question of whether homosexuals ought to be permitted to – and be protected in the course of – pursuing romance and relationships analogous to heterosexual ones, but with men or women of the same sex, I should think that the very tenor of the Christian faith first compels us to say “yes”. After all, as a religion and as a philosophy of life, Christianity heavily emphasizes care for our fellow man. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves, we are to sell our riches and give to the poor. Those who are hungry we are to feed, those who are thirsty we are to water. We are to invite in the stranger, clothe the naked, look after the sick, visit the imprisoned – for these which we do for the least of our brothers and sisters we do also for Christ our Lord. And so when perceiving these men and women who, it seems, cannot help being attracted to people of the same sex, how can we but naturally desire that they too may be permitted and defended in the possibility of tasting the fruits of romance and the complex joys of family building that we ourselves pursue? What privilege I enjoy, I wish also for my brother or sister – even at my own peril. That is a pillar of the Christian faith.

What privilege I enjoy, I wish also for my brother or sister – even at my own peril. That is a pillar of the Christian faith.

Then wherefore the controversy? Opposition largely centers around several bits of scripture – up to 6 verses in all – that seem to be critical of homosexual behavior. Flanking this are claims of the unnaturalness of homosexuality, the idea that homosexuality is not determined but chosen, and the claim that homosexuality can be changed into heterosexuality and thus “cured”. On the basis of scripture opponents claim that homosexual behavior is sinful, and on the basis of the other claims they may go on to charge that homosexuals sin by choosing homosexuality for themselves over natural heterosexuality, and that repenting the sin of homosexuality holds up hope that homosexuals may re-embrace heterosexuality and thus be admitted to the same possibilities and fruits heterosexuals traditionally enjoy.

Let us examine these claims

Is homosexuality a choice?
The answer seems to be “no”, for the time being. This is a scientific question, and we must thus draw our answer from the work of the scientific community – the prevailing consensus of which at the time of this writing is that no, homosexuality is not a choice. It is true that there is yet no established scientific consensus on the cause(s) of homosexuality, and our understanding of homosexuality may yet evolve with the progress of related research, but at least for the time being there is no use cherry-picking results as I have seen done in some Christian-themed material. To, for example, conclude homosexuality as a choice merely from the fact that scientists don’t currently regard hereditary/genes as the sole/main cause of homosexuality is to misrepresent the literature. If we appeal to science at all we must take it in full and accept the interpretation of its practitioners.

If we appeal to science at all we must take it in full and accept the interpretation of its practitioners.

Likewise on the topic of whether homosexuality is “unnatural” or whether it might be “cured”, the view held by contemporary science as of this writing is unfavorable to people who would argue against homosexuality on these grounds. Research appears to have shown that homosexuality is a natural variation on human sexuality and that it does not result in negative or pathological psychological effects. On “curing”, there is yet insufficient evidence of the efficacy of sexual orientation changing efforts, and some people appear to have experienced significant distress from the experience, so that there is now great suspicion on the practice on ethical grounds.

An understanding of these ideas is significant to our framing of the homosexuality issue because it outlines the moral gravity of the whole thing. If we insist that homosexuality is sinful and turn out to be wrong, we risk inflicting significant suffering and trauma on innocent people. This is why I have said that an anti-homosexuality position runs against the tenor of the Christian faith. I think it is encouraging that many Christians who view homosexuality as sinful are nonetheless well aware of these things and are exceedingly cautious and gentle in practice. Some have restricted the sinfulness of homosexuality to only the sexual act itself, and thus view the sexual orientation as merely a temptation rather than an aberration or a sin, one that may be successfully resisted simply by celibacy. Now this is I believe a more robust, scientifically tenable position. We shall consider it next.

If homosexuality is not a choice, can it be a sin?
In a strict sense, no – since an act of sin must be an act of choice. But it may still plausibly be a temptation to sin. This can be illustrated very simply with a thought experiment. Let us consider pedophilia – that is, a dominant sexual attraction towards children. Now I am not myself knowledgeable about the real facts about pedophilia and its effects on its sufferers, but let us suppose here purely for the sake of argument that it is not a choice and also not a source of other negative psychological effects. It should be evident that pedophilia remains a temptation to real sin all the same. The sinfulness of consummating a pedophilic desire is not nullified by the involuntariness of the desire. Likewise therefore, if it can be demonstrated that, for example, homosexual intercourse is sinful, then homosexuality could be a temptation to sin even if it is not a choice. This would in fact be entirely analogous with regular modes of sin – we did not choose to be born with greed, and yet following our greedy impulse would lead inevitably to sin. Involuntary temptation, and virtuous – oftentimes painful – resistance, is well at home in Christian thought.

Involuntary temptation, and virtuous – oftentimes painful – resistance, is well at home in Christian thought.

The question then becomes: is homosexual intercourse sinful? The answer clearly isn’t as evident as with the case of my hypothetical pedophilia. If pursued monogamously, consensually and with due diligence, there is no evidence that homosexual intercourse results in any significant harm to its participants – or anyone else. How then might we decide?

“Scripture!” would doubtlessly be the resounding answer from some Christians. But is it really decisive?

Does Scripture decisively rule against homosexual acts?
No, I do not think so. There is a good amount of debate around this topic, which I won’t endeavor to consider in full here. Example full articles treating it from each side can be found here and here. For my part, I find myself in greater agreement with the perspective that Paul in his epistles never began to consider homosexuality in the context which we do today – ie that of lifelong, monogamous, consensual relationship in accordance with an involuntary sexual orientation. There is evidence that heterosexual men and women did engage in homosexual intercourse out of depravity in those days, and no evidence that homosexuality was ever coherently known or discussed as an involuntary sexual orientation. And therefore it seems extremely likely that Paul was writing in reference to depraved homosexuality and not to the sort of sincere, loving relationships we are here considering. While one must admit there is some merit to the idea that Scripture can often stand on its own, transcending even the context and intentions of its human author, exegesis of this sort must naturally be applied with caution. It suffices at any rate for our current purposes to note that there is credible opposition to the idea that Scripture is unequivocally against homosexual relationships/acts of the type we are considering. It thus becomes a question of Scripture interpretation, and in Christian thought, Scripture is engaged and interpreted with the help of personal communion with the Holy Spirit, and that brings me to my next point.

It suffices at any rate for our current purposes to note that there is credible opposition to the idea that Scripture is unequivocally against homosexual relationships/acts of the type we are considering

Can we truly understand a sin towards which we feel no temptation?
Admittedly – sometimes yes. In the case of pedophilia for example, the sinfulness of the consummation is apparent from the evil and suffering it inflicts on others. And so where the sin eventually manifests itself as harmful effects we can clearly see and perceive, then we can understand its sinful nature even if we are not tempted to it. “Ye shall know them by their fruits”. However, in cases where a hypothetical sin may manifest no clear outward signs of harm – as in, apparently, the case of our type of homosexual relationships – the situation is more complicated.

Does “no outward signs of harm” decisively eliminate the possibility of sin?
We must acknowledge “no”. Harm is not always apparent to the observer – at least, not to observers such as us. The goal of the Christian life is to manifest the Godliness of our Father as fully as we are able to, and a sin may cause us to simply fall short of what we would otherwise be able to attain. An external human observer would likely have no true idea of what God’s plan is for a particular soul, and so might not be able to tell when such a soul has fallen short. And so it is certainly possible for a real sin to manifest no clearly humanly discernible outward signs – though God of course would know. That however brings forth the following synthesis:

Can we as third-party human observers truly know an untempted sin which manifests no clear signs?
I would argue, no. It doesn’t seem to me that in Its guidance of my soul the Holy Spirit is usually concerned with things that do not tempt me. Out of my own sincere contemplation I can speak with confidence about my own battle with my own enemies, but can I truly also speak with confidence about the battles that I do not fight? I think not. And so it is my opinion that those of us who are not homosexual cannot know that homosexuality is a sin merely on our own introspective thought, however sincere. The Christian homosexual may plausibly be able to say with confidence that he/she thinks homosexuality is a sin, but the rest of us, I think, cannot make this claim on our own. We must be supplemented – either by scientific data, or at least by unequivocal Scripture. Neither of which, as I have argued, seems presently decisive.

can I truly also speak with confidence about the battles that I do not fight? I think not.

In the final analysis it must be admitted that the position I am arguing for is tentative. It seems clear to me that we currently have no grounds to say confidently that homosexuality is a sin or a temptation to a sin, and therefore should in practice allow it and even support it whenever such support may result in good effects – like alleviation of personal distress and defeat of social discrimination. At the same time I admit that this position is not set in stone – it can be modified by new information. Before ending, I should like to make clear the sort of new information I am here talking about. I do not think it is likely to come from Scripture – we have probably already debated all there is to debate about that. I think at least 2 things may hold the potential to affect my position. Firstly – new scientific/research results. If scientific research were to, say, eventually demonstrate that homosexual relationship in fact causes tangible harm of some sort, then that would be a valid occasion to revise our conclusion. Secondly – the testimony of homosexual Christians. If large numbers of homosexual Christians were to independently and sincerely testify that, through their experiences and their journey with the Spirit, they perceive that the consummation of their own homosexual desires is sinful, then, on the grounds of my previous thesis that a sin is knowable to those whom it tempts, I would also consider this a valid occasion for potentially revising our conclusion.

 

“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.“

 

“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ“

Reflections on the “Is There Meaning to Life?” Dialogue

Jason moofangChristianity | Naturalism | Reflections | Theism

I had the pleasure of watching a dialogue between Jordan Peterson, Rebecca Goldstein and William Lane Craig on the topic of “Is There Meaning to Life” on Youtube recently. Here is a record of my reflections.

Loosely, the speakers are set up as a kind of see-saw balance – Craig is a theist and a Christian, Goldstein is a naturalist and an atheist, while Peterson inhabits the space somewhere in between. Craig goes first, and he wastes no time in expounding the idea that meaning is baseless without God – in opposition of a naturalistic worldview, articulating a position that more or less agrees with my own. I’ve seen some material from Craig before and he strikes me as a very clear and technical speaker – and that is on display here as well, as he is the only one among the three who seemed to have come geared and armed for a detailed, nitty-gritty debate – not just arguing, for example, that “meaning” cannot be derived from a purely naturalistic view of the world but also carefully dividing “meaning” into the related but conceptually distinct categories of “purpose”, “value” and “significance”. He quoted generously from passages by non-theistic thinkers who agree that there seems to be no natural and convincing reason to suppose that what is good is objectively good, or that anything done could matter in any real sense. I particularly appreciated his rather impassioned performance of Nietzsche’s “God is dead, and we have killed him!” story. I’ve read criticisms of Craig before that loosely complained about his abstractness, that for all the ingenuity he displays in weaving together complicated and philosophically powerful arguments, he lacked “grounding” and simple connections to truth. So I thought the “God is dead” passage gave his segment a spark of humanity, in the sense that it put a crack in his apparently impersonal armor of technical argument to reveal the person underneath, sharing Nietzsche’s own profound horror at the idea being portrayed.

Goldstein is speaking, it seems to me, from within enemy territory

Goldstein goes next, and judging by the youtube comments people seem to have liked her segment the least. However I feel like one thing ought to be kept in mind when listening to this dialogue: a field like “the meaning of life” is kind of a position of power (I believe) for the theistic position, and so Goldstein is speaking, it seems to me, from within enemy territory. The tables would be turned, for example, if the topic were something like “suffering in the world”. I am of course not saying that naturalists have no good thing to say about meaning nor that theists have nothing to offer on suffering, but it seems to me at any rate that the state of the discourse varies according to the topic, and for discussions on meaning, the theistic position has something of an upper hand. For her part, I think Goldstein tries to articulate and defend her position with passion, as one would something cherished. The position seems to go something like this: certain things seem to be self-evidently meaningful, certain modes of behavior seem to be self-evidently obligatory. No one ought to need to tell you that you shouldn’t step on me when I’m lying on the beach, and so no further appeal to metaphysics ought to be necessary nor warranted. I do not myself think this is a solid position – after all, there seems to be no reason why I can’t ask “why do these things appear to me self-evidently meaningful”, or “why do these acts seem self-evidently obligatory”. Self-evidence here does not appear to mean self-explanatory, and so it is not incoherent to demand an explanation. Furthermore, I think no one would dispute that we seem to be able to go against this feeling of self-evident obligation if we wanted to – people have in fact done worse things than step on innocent people at the beach. So if there is a reason to go against this intuition of self-evidence then we can go against it – the intuitions are not authoritative in any binding sense. Therefore it seems to me to makes sense to question them and ask after their nature, with metaphysics thrown in if necessary. I’m not sure if any better position is possible from naturalism, and so at any rate Goldstein rolls with this one.

she expressed a horror of the very idea of transcendence, noting that apparent appeals to transcendence underlie some of the most atrocious things humans have done

In a sense, just as her position is intuitive while Craig’s is technical, her presentation also, while lacking in detailed consistency, felt personal and appealed to the audience’s sentiment and intuition. Responding to Peterson near the end of the session, she expressed a horror of the very idea of transcendence, noting that apparent appeals to transcendence underlie some of the most atrocious things humans have done. “Let’s just be human” – and that’s clearly a very resonant appeal. Why pursue transcendence when we can get it so wrong? In a subtle sense, there is also something inherently naturalistic about this point of view. Some critics of naturalism have pointed out that in a naturalistic framework there is no reason to believe that human reasoning can produce real truth – after all, in naturalism, thoughts must themselves have natural causes, and the only natural force capable of performing a regulating and perfecting role is Darwinian selection. However, selection only acts on outward, phenotypical parts of organisms and so would have only a very tenuous influence on abstract thought. The more abstract a thought is, the less exposed it has been to the reality grounding of natural selection, and so the less likely it is to be true or valid. I don’t know what naturalists usually think about this argument, but the contemplation of transcendence at any rate does seem assuredly on the abstract side of things, and so Goldstein’s skepticism seems to be in line with this angle. In my view, it seems to be a defeatist sort of position – kind of saying lets not ask too many questions and engage in hunts for ultimate, deep reasons because it is probably futile. We seem to be able to ask questions about transcendence and to say interesting things about them, so it seems to me that we should certainly try. Especially when in the real world we basically act anyway as though certain things – like morality and the laws of physics – are transcendent. Consistency between our actions and our theory of reality seems worth attempting. Anyway, whether or not philosophers talk about transcendence, it seems likely that bad men will misuse it anyway for their catastrophes, and so the correlation between transcendence theories and historical atrocities does not strike me as a valid objection to continuing to think about transcendence.

in the real world we basically act anyway as though certain things – like morality and the laws of physics – are transcendent. Consistency between our actions and our theory of reality seems worth attempting

Also, a quick word about moral progress. Goldstein seems understandably impressed with how far we have come in moral thought since the Enlightenment, but aside from the counter-argument that the very notion of “progress” smuggles in the assumption of a standard by which this progress is made (and then the question: what is the nature of this standard?); I think we ought also to be wary of unequivocally supposing that we are morally superior to our predecessors. Practical morality has a “zeitgeist” character: what is regarded by people as acceptable and laudable changes to an extent with time and environment. If a person from the 1300s were to see us now, it is not clear that she would recognize our moral superiority at all, and if we have such a tendency to be scathing of our medieval ancestors then a person from 2500 will probably have a similar attitude towards us. The fact is that even by our own moral intuition we can tell that in some ways we are lesser than our ancestors – in valor and honesty, say. We just think these are less important than the things in which we do better than them – and that sounds dangerously like fashion. I’m not suggesting that there has been no moral progress, of course (I talk meaningfully of progress since I do believe in transcendent morality), only that it may not be quite as unilateral and supreme as it may seem from our vantage point. We should always be wary of what C.S. Lewis calls “chronological snobbery”.

Now Peterson, it seems to me, ended up being largely aligned with Craig in this discussion, although he never confirmed it in so many words, and he seems to come at it from a different route. He was scathing of the idea, elaborated in Craig’s segment, that an act could be meaningless if it does not create a difference over a large timescale. The interesting thing to me is this: Peterson seems to arrive at the general territory of Craig’s main claims via intuition. Unlike Craig who wove his arguments out of, one might say, third-person “looking-at” observations of the universe at large, Peterson (who after all is a psychologist) seems to follow Goldstein in appealing to things one could intuit from one’s own experience, as well as from perceiving the experience of others. He seems to sort of agree with Goldstein that certain things seem self-evident to the intuition, although in his case he contemplated Auschwitz and thought he perceived self-evident evil. Unlike Goldstein, he doesn’t stop there, and so goes on to inevitably suppose that what is self-evidently evil for everybody must be transcendently evil, and then further infers that there must be a transcendent good that basically lays out the conditions for being the furthest away from the evil. This is a fascinating inversion of points of view like C.S. Lewis’ (and, partially, my own as well) – wherein one first recognizes from instances of good in the world that unadulterated Good must thus be something Real (and in being Good and Real thus demands our admiration and allegiance) and then that evil must then be the condition of being furthest away from Goodness. Dressed in semi-allegorical terms, one could say that one is a longing for paradise (the latter view) and the other a horror of hell (the former view) and that both when felt produces a similar outcome. So he arrives at basically what is common ground between him and Craig (and me) – that good, meaningful things are transcendent, eternal things that we discover and obey.

one could say that one is a longing for paradise and the other a horror of hell and that both when felt produces a similar outcome

Unlike Craig, he seems to fall short of positing the existence of God as the unifying entity of these transcendent values. And I think that’s fair – positing transcendent values from our intuitions of morality and meaning is one leap, and then identifying these transcendent values with a single being that can also be intelligibly identified with the God of religion and the God of philosophy is I think another leap that takes more careful argument. It would be interesting to see a potential future encounter between Peterson and Craig where they could debate this point. Still, it’s noteworthy enough that Peterson is willing to grant that the bible and its enigmatic stories are basically an attempt at figuring out how to be good and not evil, and furthermore that it is the best one we have. He seems to seek to interpret religious content in a “quasi-secular” way, trying to articulate, for example, how the figure of Christ represents an archetypal symbol of heroic, kingly attributes. This is a page out of his biblical lecture series (which I recommend) where he pursues this style of exegesis to great and insightful effect. Another interesting bit for me is how Peterson seems confident in, as well as comfortable with, the possibility of an effective biological reductionist explanation for moral intuition. According to him, it seems, a biological reductionist explanation of how humans came to intuit morality still does not explain morality itself, and if biological evolution produced moral intuition it is in fact because of the reality of morality. In some of his other videos (which ones specifically escapes me for the moment), he has presented some of the best outlines for the evolution of the human sense of virtue that I have yet seen, so I would recommend checking some of those out.

He seems to seek to interpret religious content in a “quasi-secular” way, trying to articulate, for example, how the figure of Christ represents an archetypal symbol of heroic, kingly attributes

In closing, I suppose I should express my own gratitude at the chance to listen to a dialogue like this and be stimulated to think about the various points that arose in the discussion. While I disagree the most with Goldstein, I thought it was nonetheless a valuable exercise to try to understand the point of view of a naturalist when placed in the face of such powerful arguments as Craig’s, and I share her sentiment that seeking commonality and resonance across divides of thought is an important and meaningful thing to do. Somewhat ironically but perhaps unsurprisingly, I have had the least to say about Craig’s points largely because they are very akin to my own positions and so I have had less to learn from and observe in them. I might also add, as a final note, that it is heartening that there was never any question between the three of them on what the practical manifestation of the meaning of life is. They disagree on the why and the how, but it was never in doubt that the meaningful life, in practice, consists of being virtuous, in obedience to the universal human intuitions of moral values.

“Go, and do thou likewise“.

A Pie-Slice for Mysticism

Jason moofangMysticism | Science

It is easy to be impressed with science, and by and large science deserves its impressiveness, given all that it has achieved in the present age. For those of us who hold that rigorously structured thought is a good (and our only) bet at making real sense of the world and our existence, it has become easy to be tempted into putting all our eggs into the scientific basket. Anyone who has sincerely explored and understood science know that science is indomitable as a mechanism for understanding the natural universe, and at first it can seem obvious that this understanding is everything – or at least very nearly everything – that we can meaningfully know about as human beings.

I have come to think that this is something of an illusion. The mistake, I think, is in part being led to dismiss variety in terms of kind by being impressed with apparent scale. Most people would surely acknowledge that there are interesting items of thought lying outside the domain of science. But the material scale – in terms of space and time, say – covered by the scientific domain is so staggeringly vast, it begins to feel like it must therefore also cover the vast majority of possible human knowledge. Scientific knowledge is also capable of impressive rigor, and it can be tempting to suppose that all knowledge incapable of similar levels of verification is on that account unimportant. After all, if it is also true that virtually all of possible knowledge lies within the reach of science, why bother with anything else?

 

…the material scale covered by the scientific domain is so staggeringly vast, it begins to feel like it must therefore also cover the vast majority of possible human knowledge

 

I’ve been there myself, and now that I feel that I have moved past that, it is surprisingly hard to explain the shift. I think it must be acknowledged that much of it came first from feeling – which is of course a dangerous word in science. But feeling is still a quintessentially human thing, and I think no one can truly set about exploring the extra-scientific regions of human experience – things like morality, or beauty, meaning – without feeling that there is something strangely real about them. Now of course, feeling is never enough and on its own is often misleading – but (and even in practical scientific pursuits) it is often a clue that we dismiss at our own peril. It ought to be supplemented with reason. We have feelings of epiphany, and then we stop and take a critical look and we trace it out in articulate reason – a lot of the time, that is the outline of the genesis of knowledge.

Now here’s the thing – science is not obviously fundamental. It rests on some bedrock foundational assumptions that we’re not in the habit of turning over every now and then. And one of the critical assumptions is this rather incredulous proposition: that mental models of the universe, such as can be formulated in minds like ours: ape-like creatures that are part of the universe – can be a meaningful approximation of the universe itself. Keep in mind that when we say in science that we are studying the universe, or studying nature, we are actually studying a mental picture. Select information comes pouring in through our senses, and our minds somehow form an abstract interpretation with that input, and it is this interpretation – this reconstructed model of the external world that we put together from sensory data (including what we see when we read our instruments!) – that we are working with in science. We assume that this mental picture – this universe forged of senses and formed of thought – is significantly indicative of the “real thing” out there. What alternative do we have! Either abstract thought is somehow able to be in genuine touch with greater reality, or humans can know nothing.

 

Either abstract thought is somehow able to be in genuine touch with greater reality, or humans can know nothing.

 

But here’s the thing: if abstract thought has the possibility of being somehow resonant with greater reality, then it follows that all kinds of abstract thought may carry this possibility – not just the sort we employ in say the formulation of the laws of physics. Any pursuit of the mind that leads to interesting and structured complexity ought to begin rousing our suspicion. So the picture becomes different – a continuum of thought in which scientific thinking is only a slice of the pie. It becomes obvious that we ought to explore the other slices as well – the entire splendor of which human thought is capable – and see what shows up. So long as we can think that science covers the vast majority of meaningful knowledge it is sane to wish to be exclusively interested in science; but when this is no longer apparent, then we can no longer avoid mysticism.

 

…things like truth, virtue, objective value, beauty, imagination and art may after all be connected with an external reality that is beyond mere biological mental states

 

I’m jumping the gun a little bit here of course. Mysticism is a much-maligned word in today’s world that suffers from many poor interpretations, but I’m content here to merely mean the beginnings of the suspicion that things like truth, virtue, objective value, beauty, imagination and art may after all be connected with an external reality that is beyond mere biological mental states. Once we begin to entertain this idea, we can look back at the history of our race and begin to see more clearly, that we have always relentlessly and almost madly pursued what we might call the great Romances – furnished them with such mysterious creations as stories, songs, poetry, festivity, ritual and Worship. It should be no wonder that the world has been religious. For better or worse, we seem to have come with these romances built in, and we would be unwise to dismiss them on the rash assumption that science has supplanted them.