In Part One of this series, I gave two examples of problems I perceive with stories in the Old Testament in which judgement was handed down in starkly different and inconsistent manners. In my judgment, these two stories suggest that the Old Testament was not directly inspired by an all powerful, just, and holy god, but rather by men whose motivations and limitations were human, not divine. These and other problems with the Old Testament stories and law lead me to believe that the Bible is no different than the sacred texts of other religions, written by men. There are both passages with useful insights and wisdom as well as passages that are deeply flawed, often depicting injustice, cruelty, and ignorance.
Let me preface this post by saying that there is much wisdom and insight into morality and justice contained in the New Testament. It remains one of my favorite religious texts. I hold the majority of Jesus' teachings, as recorded in gospels, in high esteem. I don't buy the argument made by certain preachers that you can't pick and choose certain teachings as good and disregard the others (Jesus is either liar, lunatic, or messiah). It isn't logically inconsistent to say a person said many things that were good, but some that were not. That argument is an attempt to force a false choice. I'm not convinced that Jesus actually said everything that is attributed to him in the Bible. And even if he did, I can use my sense and judgment to discern good things from bad. Portions of texts from other religions contain insights and wisdom. There are overlaps in the normative prescriptions among the various religious belief systems. If the same logic was applied to the teachers or teachings of those religions, you would have to either accept them all as divine (or at least divinely inspired), or reject them all as liars and lunatics, including Jesus. By that same logic, we can't say those teachers say some good things, but get some things wrong. We either have to accept them wholesale or reject them wholesale. Silly.
So, one of the more significant issues that lead me to question the divine authority of the New Testament also relates to justice. It is the notion of eternal damnation. In the book of James, our earthly life is described as a mist, here for an instant and then gone (the passage is speaking in terms of a lifetime as compared to an eternal timeline). The implication intended, 'how could we think of risking eternal joy for eternal damnation just so we can live our own way and not the way God has planned for us for this very brief life we have?' Well, another way to look at it is, what kind of twisted being puts people into a situation in which there are many conflicting ideas about how reality works for an instant of time and, should they not come to the one right conclusion among hundreds of competing options, be subject to torture for eternity? Again, this doesn't seem like the kind of god to whom I want to devote my life.
There have been billions of people throughout history who have had no access to Christian doctrine or theology to even consider as a possible alternative to whatever indigenous metaphysical paradigm they inherited from their culture. People from all around the world have lived and died over the course of thousands of years with no means of discovering "salvation through faith in Christ". According to New Testament teaching, all of those people go to hell to suffer for eternity because they didn't accept a savior they had no means of discovering. To refer back to the analogy of the children, it would be as if the true set of rules was kept outside of the gym and these people were never exposed to it to make a judgment as to whether or not they should accept it. Wouldn't a just and merciful god have given everyone equal access to the truth?
I'm familiar with the passage in Romans 1 that suggests we can all discern the nature of God from creation. That claim doesn't hold water. If God's nature and the doctrines that follow from the Bible's version of God would have some kind of representation in every culture. But we don't find that to be the case. I'm also familiar with the book "Eternity in Their Hearts" that takes the idea of divine revelation in disparate cultures around the world and tries to run with it. I think the author is finds some interesting stories, but I don't think they amount to the kind of global/universal divine revelation one would expect if the nature of God was as readily apparent in nature as suggested in Paul's letter to the Romans. I'll deal with this subject at greater length in a future post, but when I look at the natural world, I don't come to the conclusion that there is a just god of any kind at work. Anyhow, I can't accept the notion that a just god would allow so many people to suffer in agony for eternity without a better line to salvation than dropping one man on the earth tens of thousands of years into human history as savior and allowing the vast majority of humans both before and after that event to perish and suffer for eternity.
That's twisted enough, but Christianity as an extra snag for the people who successfully find salvation through faith in Christ after the end times. The book of Revelations says that we will have another opportunity, not to find salvation, but to screw up and be punished for eternity. I can't imagine punishing a bad dog for an extended period of time, let alone torturing a person, or worse, allowing a person to be tortured for eternity. That just seems evil to me. If there is a god who is capable of being tuned into the thoughts of every human mind (or soul if you prefer) that has ever existed and stand by while those beings are in agony suffering through all eternity, then that god must relish human anguish. Allowing for no out after this mist of a life is over, but providing another opportunity to "fall from grace" into that eternal torture only further cements the image of a demented god.
It's interesting that I sometimes hear pastors trying to hedge on eternal suffering saying "well, it's really just separation from God that will make it bad." However, that is not the way hell is described by the Bible, and I would submit that the reason believers don't want it to be an actual eternal fire with screaming and gnashing of teeth and thirst etc etc, is because it seems unnecessarily cruel. Why not just snuff the person out of existence into oblivion?
C.S Lewis also seemed to balk at the idea of eternal judgment for people without access to the Christian narrative, but who lived a moral life to the best of their knowledge and capability. In chapters 14 and 15 of the final novel in the Narnia series, "The Last Battle", Lewis describes a heaven-like paradise where all of the characters who were committed to Aslan (the allegorical Christ figure in the Narnia series) find themselves in the life beyond. In that heavenly place, the main characters come across an individual who did not serve Aslan, but rather the god from another land in the Narnian world. This character was evidently admitted into Narnia paradise because he was a good and kind person, even if he was dedicated to the evil god Tash who Aslan himself describes as his polar opposite. Lewis seems to be suggesting that people can serve other gods and be wrong about which god they serve, but still find eternal salvation because they were able to discern some truth about kindness and goodness. This stands in stark contrast to New Testament teaching on the matter (John 14:6). Why would Lewis inject this into his novel? I suspect because to believe otherwise conflicts with our sense of justice and morality. That doctrine is unpalatable and unjust, so he rewrote it.
Those were the most substantive reasons my belief in New Testament authority began to wane. There were others as well, from acceptance of the institution of slavery, to treatment of women, to the carte blanche proscription against homosexual relationships. But I could possibly work around these issues were it not for the more serious clashes with justice detailed above.
Frustrated by attempts to make sense out of the Bible on it's own terms, I began to consider my own life experiences. The conclusions I came to with regard to the world around me will be the topic of the next few posts.
Thanks,
Gavagai
Let me preface this post by saying that there is much wisdom and insight into morality and justice contained in the New Testament. It remains one of my favorite religious texts. I hold the majority of Jesus' teachings, as recorded in gospels, in high esteem. I don't buy the argument made by certain preachers that you can't pick and choose certain teachings as good and disregard the others (Jesus is either liar, lunatic, or messiah). It isn't logically inconsistent to say a person said many things that were good, but some that were not. That argument is an attempt to force a false choice. I'm not convinced that Jesus actually said everything that is attributed to him in the Bible. And even if he did, I can use my sense and judgment to discern good things from bad. Portions of texts from other religions contain insights and wisdom. There are overlaps in the normative prescriptions among the various religious belief systems. If the same logic was applied to the teachers or teachings of those religions, you would have to either accept them all as divine (or at least divinely inspired), or reject them all as liars and lunatics, including Jesus. By that same logic, we can't say those teachers say some good things, but get some things wrong. We either have to accept them wholesale or reject them wholesale. Silly.
So, one of the more significant issues that lead me to question the divine authority of the New Testament also relates to justice. It is the notion of eternal damnation. In the book of James, our earthly life is described as a mist, here for an instant and then gone (the passage is speaking in terms of a lifetime as compared to an eternal timeline). The implication intended, 'how could we think of risking eternal joy for eternal damnation just so we can live our own way and not the way God has planned for us for this very brief life we have?' Well, another way to look at it is, what kind of twisted being puts people into a situation in which there are many conflicting ideas about how reality works for an instant of time and, should they not come to the one right conclusion among hundreds of competing options, be subject to torture for eternity? Again, this doesn't seem like the kind of god to whom I want to devote my life.
There have been billions of people throughout history who have had no access to Christian doctrine or theology to even consider as a possible alternative to whatever indigenous metaphysical paradigm they inherited from their culture. People from all around the world have lived and died over the course of thousands of years with no means of discovering "salvation through faith in Christ". According to New Testament teaching, all of those people go to hell to suffer for eternity because they didn't accept a savior they had no means of discovering. To refer back to the analogy of the children, it would be as if the true set of rules was kept outside of the gym and these people were never exposed to it to make a judgment as to whether or not they should accept it. Wouldn't a just and merciful god have given everyone equal access to the truth?
I'm familiar with the passage in Romans 1 that suggests we can all discern the nature of God from creation. That claim doesn't hold water. If God's nature and the doctrines that follow from the Bible's version of God would have some kind of representation in every culture. But we don't find that to be the case. I'm also familiar with the book "Eternity in Their Hearts" that takes the idea of divine revelation in disparate cultures around the world and tries to run with it. I think the author is finds some interesting stories, but I don't think they amount to the kind of global/universal divine revelation one would expect if the nature of God was as readily apparent in nature as suggested in Paul's letter to the Romans. I'll deal with this subject at greater length in a future post, but when I look at the natural world, I don't come to the conclusion that there is a just god of any kind at work. Anyhow, I can't accept the notion that a just god would allow so many people to suffer in agony for eternity without a better line to salvation than dropping one man on the earth tens of thousands of years into human history as savior and allowing the vast majority of humans both before and after that event to perish and suffer for eternity.
That's twisted enough, but Christianity as an extra snag for the people who successfully find salvation through faith in Christ after the end times. The book of Revelations says that we will have another opportunity, not to find salvation, but to screw up and be punished for eternity. I can't imagine punishing a bad dog for an extended period of time, let alone torturing a person, or worse, allowing a person to be tortured for eternity. That just seems evil to me. If there is a god who is capable of being tuned into the thoughts of every human mind (or soul if you prefer) that has ever existed and stand by while those beings are in agony suffering through all eternity, then that god must relish human anguish. Allowing for no out after this mist of a life is over, but providing another opportunity to "fall from grace" into that eternal torture only further cements the image of a demented god.
It's interesting that I sometimes hear pastors trying to hedge on eternal suffering saying "well, it's really just separation from God that will make it bad." However, that is not the way hell is described by the Bible, and I would submit that the reason believers don't want it to be an actual eternal fire with screaming and gnashing of teeth and thirst etc etc, is because it seems unnecessarily cruel. Why not just snuff the person out of existence into oblivion?
C.S Lewis also seemed to balk at the idea of eternal judgment for people without access to the Christian narrative, but who lived a moral life to the best of their knowledge and capability. In chapters 14 and 15 of the final novel in the Narnia series, "The Last Battle", Lewis describes a heaven-like paradise where all of the characters who were committed to Aslan (the allegorical Christ figure in the Narnia series) find themselves in the life beyond. In that heavenly place, the main characters come across an individual who did not serve Aslan, but rather the god from another land in the Narnian world. This character was evidently admitted into Narnia paradise because he was a good and kind person, even if he was dedicated to the evil god Tash who Aslan himself describes as his polar opposite. Lewis seems to be suggesting that people can serve other gods and be wrong about which god they serve, but still find eternal salvation because they were able to discern some truth about kindness and goodness. This stands in stark contrast to New Testament teaching on the matter (John 14:6). Why would Lewis inject this into his novel? I suspect because to believe otherwise conflicts with our sense of justice and morality. That doctrine is unpalatable and unjust, so he rewrote it.
Those were the most substantive reasons my belief in New Testament authority began to wane. There were others as well, from acceptance of the institution of slavery, to treatment of women, to the carte blanche proscription against homosexual relationships. But I could possibly work around these issues were it not for the more serious clashes with justice detailed above.
Frustrated by attempts to make sense out of the Bible on it's own terms, I began to consider my own life experiences. The conclusions I came to with regard to the world around me will be the topic of the next few posts.
Thanks,
Gavagai
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