The Delusion of Jargon

As scientific knowledge has increased, so has its verbosity. As its lexicon of explanations grows, our belief in God tends to shrink:

Since the latter part of the 18th century, deism used science to justify its stance. Scientists, like Sir Isaac Newton, were able to elaborate more and more to explain how the universe and everything around us worked. Many of the mysteries that man attributed to God, yielded simple mechanistic explanations. The increase in knowledge spurred the decline in religious faith among the intellectual elite. As a philosopher and mathematician, Descartes reduced God to a “mathematical abstraction.” Reason pushed faith off into the realm of mythology and superstition, while deism quickly deteriorated into atheism (belief in no God at all). Science seemed to engage in a centuries-old battle with religion for the mind of man. Life became a product of blind change -- a cosmic game of chance played throughout time. - http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/deism.htm

Imagine that you had never ever seen a computer before. One day, you discover one that is still operational. As you examine it, the one question that would dominate your thinking would be regarding its origin. You might start off thinking that some sentient being (a programmer) created it. Over time, you perform experiments on the computer and make discoveries. One discovery you make is that there is an underlying set of rules (software) giving the computer its logical features. Let's say one day, you even discover the binary logic and mathematical algorithms that underlie the ability of this computer.

Would this mean that you could come to the conclusion that there must not be a programmer? Would this mean that you could come to the conclusion that the computer must be the product of a chance set of random processes if given enough time?

So why do we treat the universe this way in light of modern scientific discoveries?

To use another illustration, knowing what is under the hood of an automobile, doesn't make the existence of automobile designers/engineers less believable....

GK Chesterton, in his book Orthodoxy, suggests in the "Maniac" chapter that in fairy tales, we don't think of laws, we think in terms of magic. We accept, as a premise of the story, that if Cinderella doesn't return before midnight, her carriage will turn into a pumpkin.

Yet in life, we seem to think it is some sort of law that the egg will turn into the chicken. But logically speaking, the egg is about as far apart as the carriage is to the pumpkin.

Science has replaced our narrative with propositions and our faith with technology.

I very much believe in science. I'm just not quick to accept the reductionist worldview we most quickly gravitate towards as a result of its influence.

Could it be that we really live in such a fairy land, obscured by illusions of scientific jargon? Yes, faith can fool us, propelling us into an illusory world that doesn't really exist. But could it be that science can do the same? The only distinction between the two is that if science fools us, it takes away wonder.

So, yes I think it is healthy to guard faith against wishful thinking. But it is equally healthy to guard against science's reductionist proclivity.

Words demystify. But SHOULD they? Should they steal our wonder, aging us out of childhood into crotchety old people?

Wise men hear and see as little children do. - Lao Tzu

Wisdom begins in wonder. - Socrates

If you disagree with the points suggested in this article, ask yourself this question: Do you do so because of a gap in logic or a gap in imagination?

How old is your thinking?

Faith Balances the Extremes

Faith is belief in moderation, the opposite of extremes, the antithesis of the "one-ended stick".

It is obvious that faith can't exist without belief. Whenever Jesus encountered someone who struggled with belief, He would commonly ask, "Where is your faith"?

But notice that He also never asked, "Where is your certainty?"

Just as faith is impossible without belief, it is equally impossible without the presence of doubt.

If you are absolutely 100% certain of any belief, it can NOT be defined as faith. No one has FAITH that they are going to die. No one has faith that the sun will come up tomorrow (although it IS possible, but extremely unlikely that it will NOT come up).

If faith is a belief that is the mean between doubt and certainty, than it appears to in the middle between two extremes.

So why is it that people of faith so often find themselves at the fringes of life?

If you do NOT have faith, then what are you left with except to believe only in that which can be proven with certainty (which is very little) or with a perpetual skepticism that leaves your mind unhinged.

"Let beliefs fade fast and frequently, if you wish institutions to remain the same. The more the life of the mind is unhinged, the more the machinery of matter will be left to itself." - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, pg 60.

Such thinking changes nothing, not even its adherent.

I once heard a local pastor say it this way: "If your faith hasn't changed you, then you need to change your faith."

What screams louder?

C.S. Lewis changed the way that I think. To sum it up, he presents our emotions and longings as being "signposts" which point to truth. Prior to Lewis' interpretation, my instinct was to look at emotions only as an outworking to our world.

Lewis once said that the existence of the stomach was evidence that there also existed something in which it could be filled with. What does this truth tell you about the hole in your heart?

Lewis probably acquired this worldview by G.K. Chesterton. In his book Orthodoxy, he wrote:

The test of all happiness is gratitude; and
I felt grateful, though I hardly knew to whom. Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their
stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings
the gift of two miraculous legs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can
I thank no one for the birthday present of birth? Orthdoxy pg 30.

It seems that we have this innate longing to thank, or dare I even say worship, someone outside of ourselves. If this longing goes unfulfilled, we are destined to find life meaningless. This sentiment was acknowledged by OsCar Wilde.

Chesterton writes about this:

Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for
sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being
Oscar Wilde. Orthodoxy pg 32

Like anyone of faith, my doubts sometimes scream at me. But what screams louder is this longing to live for someone bigger than myself.

Distracted by meaninglessness, surprised by joy

Is God merely an invention of the human mind to account for death?

This is a fair and common question.

What is the most certain thing that will happen to every living being on this planet and in the known universe?

Is it not death?

What idea is the most uncertain belief held by the greatest number of people in the known universe?

Is it not God?

What is the vehicle to belief in God if it is not faith? And what is faith if it is not a belief that contains no ounce of doubt? Can someone be a person of faith without also embracing the mystery that comes with doubt?

And what does it mean to embrace mystery, if one doesn't also embrace the very questioning process?

Why is it that people who do NOT believe in God go so far out of their way to avoid thinking about this most obvious and certain thing? Why do the skeptics live their lives embracing any distractions that numb their senses to this one universal certainty?

Is it really in our best interests to only embrace certainty, when the most certain thing is death?

Are our distractions inventions of the human mind to avoid God?

Is it not true that the believer is sure about the most certain thing, and the skeptic most doubtful?

Does it not even follow that the believer is most certain about the most important things in life, while the nonbeliever is only certain about the least important?

I close with excerpts of G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy (pages 91-92):

"The sceptic may truly be said to be topsy-turvy; for his feet are dancing upwards in idle ecstacies, while his brain is in the abyss."

"Christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man’s ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies it supremely in this; that by its creed joy becomes something gigantic and sadness something special and small."

"Christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man’s ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies it supremely in this; that by its creed joy becomes something gigantic and sadness something special and small."

"We can take our own tears more lightly than we could take the tremendous levities of the angels. So we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence, while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear."

"Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian."

Now, what was the question again? :-)

Existential Argument for God

In my last blog, I discussed the convergence of faith and reason. If you think the two are mutually exclusive, you will want to read it before proceeding.

The reasons for my Christian faith fall into two categories; existential and propositional.

The existential arguments for God appeal to our longings, our human nature, our needs. These arguments views these things as "signposts" pointing to the existence of God. C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton before him provide excellent existential arguments for God.

C.S. Lewis wrote:
"Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism." --The Abolition of Man

Check your motives. If you are an emotionally unhealthy person, you are a likely candidate for NOT getting the truth right. Our emotions filter (bias) how we see the world.

Lewis also stated:
"For me, reason is the natural organ of truth, and imagination is the organ of understanding."

The existential arguments for God are broad. They do more to tell us of His existence than who He might be.
The propositional arguments for God are more specific and go farther in that they attempt to tell us WHICH God and WHO he may be. It is at this propositional level that I come to believe in the Christian God.

Today, I will attempt to present some existential arguments for God. In my next blog, I will present the propositional arguments for a Christian God.

There is a song by the band "Extreme" called "Hole Hearted". In it, they speak of the universal longing that we all have when they say, "There's a hole in my heart and it only can be filled by you." The song is likely talking about a romantic relationship. It is interesting that the landscape of music, as well as the rest of the modern arts, is dominated by romantic and sensual longings. Is there anything in this life that really satisfies these desires?

Feminist writer Anias Nin (NOTE: not a traditional religious type) once wrote:
"Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous." Winter, 1931-1932 from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume One 1931-1934

She also wrote:
"I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls." July 7, 1934 from incest, from a journal of love

Nin expresses what I believe to be a human truth. We all long for something or someone to fill a God shaped hole. Everyone tries to fill it in different ways including romantic relationships, sensuality, drugs and alcohol, hobbies, friendships, family and children, materialism and more...

One of the best illustrations that I remember C.S. Lewis used to illustrate the truths of these "signposts" was regarding the stomach. He observed that just as the stomach's need to be filled with food was evidence that food exists, so the heart's need to be filled is proof that there is something that exists which can fill it.

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." - C.S. Lewis
--Mere Christianity

Elvis Presley had it all. He had fame, wealth, talent. He once stated that he had lived every dream that he had ever had a thousand times. Yet he died a premature death, addicted to pain killers. What pain was he trying to kill? If HE couldn't fill this hole in his heart, then how can anyone who has less?

Belief in God gives life purpose. The ultimate expression of this purpose is to enjoy God's presence. This is what Christianity calls worship. Worship is the ecstasy that Anias Nin sought. It is the culmination of every romantic desire. It is the thirst that drives us to seek the thrill, once obtained, is gone just as quickly.

"I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation." -- C.S. Lewis in "Reflections on the Psalms"

Lewis calls it Joy. Lewis was a confirmed bachelor (or so he thought). One of the books that he wrote was entitled "Surprised By Joy". Later in his life, he was pleasantly surprised to find that he had fallen in love. He married this woman who just so happened to be named Joy.

" it is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy... Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic... in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again." [Surprised By Joy 17-18]

But Lewis' first encounter with what he calls "Joy" was when he was a little boy. His brother had built a toy garden. When he saw the garden, he wrote: "It made me aware of nature--not, indeed, as a storehouse of forms and colors but as something cool, dewy, fresh, exuberant. . . . As long as I live my imagination of Paradise will retain something of my brother's toy garden."

He went on to say later in his life: "It is difficult to find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me; Milton's 'enormous bliss' of Eden . . . comes somewhere near it,"

Do you find yourself trying to feed a hole in your heart? What do you try to feed "the monster" with? Do you try to feed it with the things the band Extreme wrote about in another song entitled, "Its a Monster"?

"It's on my mind most of the time
That's when you find we all go blind
Then it will start to get in our hearts
It's gone too far, that's who we are
It's a monster
We all have within us
It's a monster
It's a monster
Turns us into sinners
It's a monster"

Augustine called this longing "The God Shaped Hole". If it is God shaped, then only He can fill it. But who is this God that we long for? We'll explore that question in the next posting.