Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Sceptical

by Timothy J. Keller

A truly secular state would create a genuinely pluralistic society and a “marketplace of ideas” in which people of all kinds of faith, including those with secular beliefs, could freely contribute, communicate, coexist, and cooperate in mutual respect and peace. Does such a place exist? No, not yet.

that

Typo

If this life is all there is, why do we long so deeply for something that doesn’t exist and never did?

Evolutionary accident?

University of London professor Eric Kaufmann, in his book Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, speaks of “the crisis of secularism” and argues that the shrinkage of secularism and liberal religion is inevitable.66 Why? There are two basic reasons. One has to do with the trends of retention and conversion. Many point to the rising percentage of younger adult “nones” in the United States as evidence for the inevitable shrinkage of religion. However, Kaufmann shows that almost all of the new religiously unaffiliated come not from conservative religious groups but from more liberal ones. Secularization, he writes, “mainly erodes … the taken-for-granted, moderate faiths that trade on being mainstream and established.”67 Therefore, the very “liberal, moderate” forms of religion that most secular people think are the most likely to survive will not. Conservative religious bodies, by contrast, have a very high retention rate of their children, and they convert more than they lose.68

In the United States and Europe, liberal religious bodies will continue to lose members, who are swelling the numbers of the secular and unaffiliated, while traditional, orthodox religions will grow.

Last Sunday in each of the nations of Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and South Africa there were more Anglicans in church than there were Anglicans and Episcopalians in all of Britain and the United States combined.

To move from religion to secularism is not so much a loss of faith as a shift into a new set of beliefs and into a new community of faith, one that draws the lines between orthodoxy and heresy in different places.

Exclusive rationality is the belief that science is the only arbiter of what is real and factual and that we should not believe anything unless we can prove it decisively using empirical observation.

we should not believe something unless we can prove it empirically. But what is the empirical proof for that proposition?

All of us have things we believe—including things we would sacrifice and even die for—that cannot be proven. We believe them on a combination of rational, experiential, and social grounds. But since these beliefs cannot be proved, does this mean we ought not to hold them, or that we can’t know them to be true? We should, therefore, stop demanding that belief in God meet a standard of universally acknowledged proof when we don’t apply that to the other commitments on which we base our lives.

Maybe there are no grounds for those beliefs though and they are just fun to have.

So reason and proof must start with faith in reason and belief in some particular concept of proof.

We cannot, then, prove these fundamental premises for the operation of reasoning.

This is not about the operation of reasoning. This is about trust in the reality of the external world.

C. Stephen Evans writes, “Science by its very nature is not fit to investigate whether there is more to reality than the natural world.”16

See book mentioned in footnote.

Charles Taylor explains why modern people are far more likely to lose their faith over suffering than those in times past. He says it is because, culturally, our belief and confidence in the powers of our own intellect have changed. Ancient people did not assume that the human mind had enough wisdom to sit in judgment on how an infinite God was disposing of things. It is only in modern times that we get “the certainty that we have all the elements we need to carry out a trial of God.”24

Only when this background belief in the sufficiency of our own reason shifted did the presence of evil in the world seem to be an argument against the existence of God.

Realizing the basic unfairness of the doctrines of hell and salvation. This doubt, my friend said, largely came from the underlying beliefs of his culture. He had a Chinese friend who did not believe in God, but who said that, if he existed, God certainly would have a right to judge people as he saw fit. He then realized that his doubt about hell was based on a very white, Western, democratic, individualistic mind-set that most other people in the world did not share. “To insist that the universe be run like a Western democracy was actually a very ethnocentric point of view,” he told me.

a person might have a tacit belief that “if I’m a Christian, and God loves me, there’s a limit to how badly life can go for me.” Such an idea is not part of formal Christian doctrine.

many Christians are led to believe that all nonbelievers will be more selfish, unscrupulous, and unhappy than believers. But what if the believer falls in with a band of well-adjusted, altruistic, honest and committed secular people?

what if a young person raised to believe sex outside of marriage is a sin also picks up the thought that therefore any experience of premarital sex would make him feel empty and unfulfilled? What if, instead, the experience makes him feel wonderful and alive? When the tacit belief is found to be wrong through new lived experience, it undermines the plausibility of the whole Christian sex ethic. Are any of these “preunderstanding” background beliefs actually part of the historical Christian faith? No, they aren’t, yet they are part of Polanyi’s “subsidiary awareness,” the loss of which, if it is unexamined, can lead to the loss of the whole faith.

I hope by now my more sceptical readers will see that neither secularism nor Christianity has the main “burden of proof.” Western secularity is not the absence of faith but a new set of beliefs about the universe.72 These beliefs cannot be proven, are not selfevident to most people, and have, as we shall continue to see, their own contradictions and problems just as other religious faiths do.73 One significant problem is that modern secularism’s humanistic values are inconsistent with—even undermined by—its belief in a materialonly universe. The other problem we have addressed is that many secular people base their nonbelief on a rigid and simplistic view of reason. They will not acknowledge that there are different, contested approaches to rationality and that all of them include the exercise of faith.

What about pure hedonistic nihilism though?

Rather than unfairly asking only religious people to prove their views, we need to compare and contrast religious beliefs and their evidences with secular beliefs and theirs. We can and should argue about which beliefs account for what we see and experience in the world. We can and should debate the inner logical consistency of belief systems, asking whether they support or contradict one another. We can and should consult our deepest intuitions.

What if someone claims no evidence for their view? Also why 'should'? That word makes this sentence itself a faith claim.

My aim from here on through the book is to do just that, and, I hope, to show that Christianity makes the greatest sense in every way—emotionally, culturally, and rationally.75

See footnote

To get at the roots of the Solversons’ ability to find life nasty, brutish, and short but nevertheless meaningful, we get a word from Lou’s wife, Betsy, a young mother dying of cancer. The sullen Noreen looks at her and says, “Camus says knowin’ we’re gonna die makes life absurd.” Betsy responds, “Nobody with any sense would say something that foolish. We’re put on this earth to do a job, and each of us gets the time we get to do it.” She looks at her young daughter Molly and continues. “And when this life is over, and you stand in front of the Lord, well, you try telling him it was all some Frenchman’s joke.”22

Terry Eagleton points out that when postmodernism denounces all absolute values and inherent meanings in the name of freedom, it “secretly smuggles … an absolute into the argument.”26 Why, for example, is freedom so important? Why is that the absolute, unquestioned “good”—and who gets to define it as such?

discovered meaning is more rational, communal, and durable than created meaning.

Nothing makes a difference. Nagel writes: Even if you produce a great work of literature which continues to be read thousands of years from now, eventually the solar system will cool or the universe will wind down and collapse and all trace of your effort will vanish.

But why should something have to be eternal to be meaningful? Cf. The book of Daniel "the righteous will shine like stars forever"

If this life is all there is, and there is no God or life beyond this material world, then it will not ultimately matter whether you are a genocidal maniac or an altruist; it won’t matter whether you fight hunger in Africa or are incredibly cruel and greedy and starving the poor.

By contrast, life meaning and purpose play out for a Christian believer in the very opposite direction. Christians do not say to themselves: “Stop thinking out the implications of what you believe about the universe. Just try to enjoy the day.” No, if a Christian is feeling downcast and meaningless, it is because, in a sense, she is not being rational enough. She is not thinking enough about the implications of what she believes about the universe.

It is fair to say that if you are a Christian with those beliefs—about who you are to God and what is in store for you—but you are not experiencing peace and meaning, then it is because you are not thinking enough. There is a kind of shallow, temporary peace that modern people can get from not thinking too much about their situation, but Christianity can give a deep peace and meaning that come from making yourself as aware and as mindful of your beliefs as possible.

Interesting. But feelings don't just come from thoughts do they? Also is faith binary or analogue? What if belief is not 'total'?

Terry Eagleton notices that the common secularist proposal to create your own meaning sounds suspiciously like the consumerism of latemodern capitalism.

Secularism is the only worldview whose members must find their main meaning within this life. All other ways of understanding the world hold that “this life is not the whole story,” but with secularism, it is. That is why all previous religions and cultures have been able to find in suffering and death a way to affirm something that matters beyond and more than just this life.46 When secular people create their meanings, however, it must be around something located inside the material world. You might be living for your family or for a political cause or for career accomplishments. To have a meaningful life, therefore, life must go well. But when suffering disrupts this, it has the power to destroy your very meaning. The secular approach to meaning can leave you radically vulnerable to the realities of how life goes in this world.

Anthropologists have observed that all nonsecular cultures give their members resources for actually being edified by suffering. Though not welcoming it, they see it as meaningful and help toward the ultimate goal. Only secular culture sees suffering as accidental and meaningless, just an interruption or destruction of what we are living for. And so our society makes it difficult to fully affirm the goodness of all life, even life in the midst of affliction.53

For the man of antiquity … the external world was happy and joyous, but the world’s core was deeply sad and dark. Behind the cheerful surface of the world of so-called merry antiquity there loomed “chance” and “fate.” For the Christian, the external world is dark and full of suffering, but its core is nothing other than pure bliss and delight.55

modern research shows some external circumstances do correlate with increased satisfaction. In particular, love relationships are important, and therefore the advice of emotional detachment may actually undermine happiness.8

What is the cause of this seemingly inescapable condition, of this enduring discontent? One modern theory is summarized by Haidt as the “Progress Principle.” People find more pleasure in working toward a goal than they experience when they actually attain it. Evolutionary psychologists opine that this is an adaptive mechanism. That is, they conjecture that our forebears who experienced postattainment disappointment were more likely to work harder to achieve higher goals. These people were then more likely to live longer and so, having more children, they passed down their genes to us. Therefore, the discontent—the feeling that nothing in the world fulfills our deepest longings—is actually a chemical response in the brain that helped our ancestors survive. The sense we have that “something is missing” is therefore an illusion, a trick played on us by our genes to get us to be more industrious. Haidt even briefly uses this evolutionary theory to explain the Peggy Lee song “Is That All There Is?” 26 But the woman’s life depicted in Peggy Lee’s song undermines the theory. She finds the repeated disappointments of life not a motivation to work harder but rather a disincentive for doing anything but getting high at parties. And surely this is realistic. Though disappointment may, in the short term, drive some people to more attainment, it can just as likely undermine initiative and drive. And over time it usually will. Therefore, the feeling does not necessarily or even normally...

How does this work? There is nothing wrong with loving your work, but if you love it more than your family, then your loves are out of order and you may ruin your family. Or if you love making money more than you love justice, then you will exploit your employees, again, because your loves are disordered.

If you love anything more than God, you harm the object of your love, you harm yourself, you harm the world around you, and you end up deeply dissatisfied and discontent.

How to Love God

Does this section really elucidate this title in practical terms or just present some more concepts for the mind to think about?

Let’s bring this down to a practical level. Just as a sailboat is not free to sail unless it confines itself in significant ways, so you will never know the freedom of love unless you limit your choices in significant ways. There is no greater feeling of liberation than to feel and be loved well. The affirmation that comes from love liberates you from fears and self-doubts. It frees you from having to face the world alone, with only your own ingenuity and resources. Your friend or mate will be crucial to helping you achieve many of your goals in life. In all these ways love is liberating—perhaps the most liberating thing. But the minute you get into a love relationship, and the deeper and the more intimate and the more wonderful it gets, the more you also have to give up your independence.

We aren’t fully free if we refuse to commit ourselves—and diminish our negative freedom—in order to do something positive. By itself, autonomy is incomplete.30

Footnote v. interesting

David Foster Wallace, the postmodern novelist, puts it like this: In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as … not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual thing to worship. … is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. … Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. … Worship power—you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart—you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

Jesus essentially says to us: “I call you only to do those things you were created to do, and you will find therefore that my yoke is easy. I put on you the burden of following me, but I have already paid the price, so that when you fail you will be forgiven.

I had recently counseled a man who had parents who always answered him in the same way. He told me: “They never said, ‘I would be proud of you if you did this or that.’ When I asked them for guidance, they always said, ‘We just want you to do what you truly want to do—whatever that is, it will be all right with us.’” The man complained that this made him feel unloved and rudderless. He doubted that they would be equally happy with any of his life choices, but he could not get them to reveal the kind of life for which they would admire him. He knew they meant well and that they thought they were being open-minded and modern. However, he said, “No one can tell yourself, ‘I’m okay.’ I needed somebody to tell me, ‘That’s the right thing to do. I’m proud of you!’ I had to go look for other kinds of family, because my family wouldn’t be the family I needed.”

No one identifies with all strong inward desires. Rather, we use some kind of filter—a set of beliefs and values—to sift through our hearts and determine which emotions and sensibilities we will value and incorporate into our core identity and which we will not. It is this value-laden filter that forms our identity, rather than our feelings themselves. And where do we get this filter? We get it from some community, some people whom we trust. Then we take this set of values into ourselves and we make sense of our insides.

identity is determined not by our feelings and desires but rather by our beliefs about our varied, contradictory, changing feelings and desires.

unlike either traditional or secular culture, a Christian’s identity is not achieved but received

Now, for example, you pursue your career not to get a self and achieve self-worth. You do it to serve God and the common good. Your work is still part of your identity, as are your family, your nationality, and so on. But they are all relieved of the terrible burden of being the ultimate source of your self and value.

“For all its talk of difference, plurality, heterogeneity, postmodern theory often operates with quite rigid binary oppositions, with ‘difference,’ ‘plurality’ and allied terms bravely up on one side of the theoretical fence as unequivocally positive, and whatever their antitheses might be (unity, identity, totality, universality) ranged balefully on the other.”18

Christians are simul justus et peccator—simultaneously perfectly righteous in Christ and in the Father’s eyes yet in ourselves very flawed and sinful. This leads to a security and humility that live together.

Jesus went to the cross to die for our salvation. That is, at the same moment, a profound statement of our sin, telling us that we are so flawed and guilty that nothing less than the death of the Son of God can save us. But it is at the same time the highest and strongest expression of his love for us and our value to him.