[Vision2020] Mere Christianity

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

Hail to the Vision!

"Mere Christianity" is the title of a famous book by C. S. Lewis, who is, as I argue in my book "God, Reason, and the Evangelicals: The Case Against Evangelical Rationalism" (www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/gre.htm), one of the greatest proponents of "evangelical rationalism."  Among some conservative evangelicals it unclear whether they intend to prove their faith by deduction from basic doctrine or by induction from empirical evidence.  In my book I conclude that they fail either way.

Lewis is definitely a member of the latter group, and our own Heirdoug is a very crude example of attempting to prove Christianity by "facts" alone.  Heirdoug should follow the example of his pastor, who rightly makes light of the fact that he has an M.A. in philosophy.  The fact that Heirdoug has confessed that he minored in philosophy gives new meaning to the word "minor." Perhaps he meant to say that he has a "miner" in philosophy, because it offers him no light at all in his dark tunnels of ignorance.

I've started with Heirdoug, and I will respond in turn to each visionary who participated in this grand debate, which has absolutely nothing to do with the future of Moscow.  

Without demonstrating any knowledge of other religions, Heirdoug makes the incredible claim that all religions except Christianity, which alone is founded on facts, are based on feelings and emotions.  The statement dramatically overrates the factual basis of Christianity, and sadly undermines the affective foundations of all religious belief.

Ralph Nielsen has already alluded to the fact that we have no eyewitness accounts of Jesus' life, death, and alleged resurrection.  The gospels are not written by any of the disciples, and Paul witnessed Jesus in a vision, not in his resurrected body.  

I'll give two examples of substantial discrepancies. The gospel accounts cannot agree on the date of Jesus' death.  Was it April 7 30 CE, as "John" reports, or April 2, 33 CE as "Matthew," Mark, and Luke say? The Gospel writers also cannot agree when Jesus ascended into Heaven. Luke, for example, gives us two dates: the first Easter Sunday (24:50-51) or 40 days later, the account that Church chose.  For details (but not for Crabtree) see www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/passover.htm.

(I love to celebrate Ascension Day in Denmark, yet another day off, where it is called "Kristihimmelfartsdag." Some of my Danish friends, experts in colloquial English, love the crude humor combining flatulence and jet propulsion up to heaven.  Some English speakers also amuse themselves with the German freeway signs "Einfart" and "Ausfart," with latter giving an extra boost to get off the Autobahn safely.) 

With regard to the balance of the cognitive and affective aspects of faith, the Bible and the Christian tradition has, until evangelical rationalists came along, favored the heart over the head. Biblical faith can be summed up as: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight" (Prov. 3:5; 2:6).  

Christianity is "fideist" (based on heart-felt fides) not rationalist in the sense of conclusions drawn from principles or empirical facts.  In his book "Faith and Belief" Wilfred Cantwell Smith has studied the early creeds carefully and concludes that "credo" is best translated as "I set my heart."

I like to use the example of the demons in the New Testament.  Because they were essentially the same type of being that Jesus allegedly was, it is reported that they knew with absolute certainty that he was the divine son of God.  Significantly, that knowledge did not lead to faith, namely, giving their hearts to that belief.  It is essential to note that cognition is not voluntary—one cannot choose to make a truth an untruth—but faith is voluntary and one is then responsible for making that choice.

Jesus himself has the best response to Christian rationalists in his rebuke of the Doubting Thomas: "Blessed are those who have not seen but yet have faith" (Jn. 20:29).  This rebuke is for all who demand so much cognitive certainty that there is no room for heart-felt faith.  Perhaps this is why there is so much stony hardness in Heirdoug.  Jean Paul Sartre once described the anti-Semite heart, another type of fanatic, as impenetrable and as durable as stone. 

Moving on to Keely's comments.  I have to agree with Paul that religious faith is not what Keely implies: the same type of trust that we have in faithful husbands, friends, and pets. We know that these beings exist and we have good empirical evidence of their fidelity.  Because God is a transcendent being and there are only indirect and widely disputed evidence of divine existence, actions, and fidelity, religious faith is qualitatively different from any faith that we have in finite beings.  

As the great Danish Christian and philosopher Kierkegaard said of Abraham's faith as he raised his arm to kill Isaac: it was like stepping out over 70,000 fathoms of water.  Kierkegaard also admitted that today, instead of being called a Knight of Faith, Abraham would be charged with attempted murder.

Moving on to Paul's comments. Paul brings up a very good point about the possibility of Christianity being falsified.  I recommend that all of you watch the documentary "The Lost Tomb of Jesus."  The hypothesis does not yet have anywhere near a scholarly consensus, and there may be just as much politics in this discovery as the disputed evidence that Jerusalem under David and Solomon was not much of a city, but the very possibility that the central claim of Christianity, that Jesus rose from the dead and left no body, could be falsified is absolutely devastating for all evangelical rationalists.

Let me follow up on Paul's idea of a "face-to-face meeting with the Almighty."  Just allow, for argument's sake, that my faith Unitarian Universalism is right and that even smart aleckly atheist philosophers get to enter the Pearly Gates.  What if one of them charged up to the divine throne and asked: "OK, it's all bliss and I'm shocked that I was allowed in, but how can we know that this will be an everlasting life?"  I'm sure that God would turn to the handsome fellow on his right hand and have him repeat for everyone's edification: "Blessed are those who believe but have not yet seen."

(I'm having real difficulty wrapping my head around a dipolar separate Father/Son with no Mr. or Ms. Holy Spirit in Heaven and the separate but not really separate Three Persons of the Holy Trinity with a single will.  My silly logical mind has to say that Jesus either rose to rejoin the Trinity, or there is no Trinity but simply God and Jesus sitting on their separate thrones and separate personalities.)

Turning now briefly to Joe's comments.  We should all be grateful to him for pointing out the wide variety of doctrinal disbelief among confessing and faithful Christians.  I find it especially troubling that the secular fundamentalists at one extreme and the Heirdougs on the other blithely either ignore or condemn all this rich middle ground.

Turning now even more briefly to Ted, because I'm running out of time and energy.  I appreciate Ted's very admirable naturalistic faith which I find most eloquently expressed in Richard Taylor's "With Heart and Mind."

Nick Gier