Energion Direct

Category: Philosophy

  • What Does It Mean to Believe?

    by  Edward W. H. Vick

    Philosophy coverThe question is: What does it mean to believe?
     The following sentences express some themes of the thirteen chapters of the book.
    Ask yourself these questions:
    What do I believe?
    Is it the same as what I say I believe, or think I believe?
    Is my belief reasonable?
    Is it justifiable?
    Is it true?
    Are these three different questions?
    Have I accepted what I believe without thinking about it?
    Can I believe something I do not understand?
     You will agree that some beliefs are rational and some are not.
    When you accept something as true (Is that what you mean by ‘belief’?) you may or may not have considered whether it is rational, whether you understand what you believe, why you are believing it, or to what extent you are being reasonable about your belief.
    Before continuing to read, you might like to take a specific example or two, preferable of a topic discussed in the book and ask some of the above questions about it, for example, miracles, self deception, identity, personal Identity, survival.
    Now you have had an opportunity to ask yourself serious questions about belief and believing. If you have already given yourself answers to questions about what and why you believe you are on the verge of or have already been doing philosophy. So if you are interested you can be even more serious by looking at specific topics and by examining them at greater length. Be warned that you will need to master the vocabulary appropriate to the topic in view, and should not always be content with simple answers.
    Philosophy for Believers addresses various issues in thirteen chapters, each one dealing with a particular subject of belief. What we shall now do is to take one of these topics for consideration.
    Here is a representative statement of belief: I believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting.
    Certain considerations immediately arise. To consider whether our dealing with them will be reasonable, we must ask the following questions:
    What assumptions am I making?
    How do I understand the key terms I am using?
    Is the language I am using, understood in the way I understand it, adequate for the explanation I am trying to achieve?
    Are the steps in my reasoning logical, i e., is the reasoning valid?
    In particular: Does the conclusion I draw follow from my reasoning?
    To return to our statement of belief: we notice at once that it is very short and because it is so concise it invites various interpretations. The ordinary believer says and remains content with the simplicity of the confession and holds to the restatement:
    I believe we shall be given new life and that life will be never ending.
    The questions that arise from this simple creedal statement give rise to a multitude of philosophical problems. Our task is to specify which of the interpretations we can reasonably consider.
    Start with your initial assumptions, among them possibly answers to the following questions:
    How shall we conceive the idea of resurrection?
    What evidence do we have that resurrection is possible?
    What do I have to believe to accept that it is possible?
    What sort of life is eternal life and how is it related to my present life?
    Will I be the same person in the hereafter as I am now?
    Same person? So what constitutes identity, personal identity?
    Now let’s take examples of a process by which you reach your conclusion.
    You will note that some terms are in italics. These are the basic terms that require detailed consideration and definition. Only then will constructive and consistent argument be forthcoming and leading to a reasonable conclusion.
    Example 1: I believe in the immortality of the soul
    Assumptions:
    bodies do not survive,
    souls may survive,
    the soul constitutes the person
    God is active in the process.
    Argument:
    the constituent of the self
    the soul is inherently immortal
    connect the idea of immortality with the idea of the self
    Conclusion:
    The life everlasting is the life of the immortal soul. The soul survives eternally.
    Explanations required:
    Concerning the source of the assumptions, and how they are to be justified
    How to justify speaking of the soul as the constituent entity of the self
    How to conceive of the soul as immortal
    How to conceive of the possibility of retaining identity in the after life
    How to think rationally about eternity
    We now consider an example of a different interpretation of the same initial creedal statement.
    Example 2: I believe in the resurrection of the body.
    Assumptions:
    The idea of the soul is misconceived
    It is not needed to give an account of what constitutes a person
    It is therefore not needed to account for personal survival
    Speak of the body to conceive the survival of the person, i.e. of resurrection
    Search for a rational way of conceiving the identity of the surviving person with the original person
    God is active in the process
    [A hidden assumption (and all that it implies) may well be that the idea of bodily resurrection is what is taught in Christian Scripture and so should be the proper subject of rational explanation. However the philosophical treatment must stand on its own rational feet.] Argument:
    The idea of survival is to be connected with the concept of the body
    The concept of bodily survival can be conceived rationally
    This is achieved by introducing the idea of personal identity, continuing after death though resurrection
    The concept of replication achieves the desired result
    Resurrection of the body to eternal life is a reasonable belief
    Conclusion:
    You will note that some terms are in italics. These are the basic terms that require detailed consideration and definition. Only then will constructive and consistent argument be forthcoming and lead to a reasonable conclusion.
    Explanations required:
    Assumptions should not be taken for granted. Since we are engaged in a philosophical exercise, even if a primary source of a key assumption is that it represents the teaching of Christian Scripture, the argument will rest on the validity of the reasoning involved, i.e., the validity of the logic by which the conclusion is reached.
    We have taken the theme of chapter 11 as our subject. There are thirteen chapters altogether, each one dealing with an interesting theme of both general interest and also of interest to Christians. These chapters are supplemented with tutorials and Work Sheets. This makes the book suitable for use in the classroom, as well as for individual study.
    Having considered the above explanation I propose you attempt an answer to the following question:
    How does philosophical discussion affect the understanding of your belief?
    Suggestions:

    1. make some general statement(s).
    2. take a single belief that is important for you and examine it.

  • The way in: how we got to be who we are

    by Steve Kindle

    I'm Right coverThe history of philosophy has been aptly summed up thus: “No matter what is considered the ultimate in metaphysical understanding today, tomorrow it will be replaced by another received as the ultimate in metaphysical understanding.” The same can be said for how the Bible has been interpreted throughout the centuries. I ask you, when was the last time you heard a sermon detailing truth derived from the allegorical method of interpretation? Could we say never?
    I recently led a seminar on the four Gospels. You can be sure I didn’t follow Irenaeus’s lead (the leader of the church in France circa 70 CE) who declared that, “There actually are only four authentic gospels. And this is obviously true because there are four corners of the universe and there are four principal winds, and therefore there can be only four gospels that are authentic.” Somehow that logic escapes me, yet it was obvious to Irenaeus.
    Psalm 19:4b-6 states, In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun, 5which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy. 6Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hid from its heat.
    Before the Copernican revolution was finally accepted as “the way things are,” biblical interpreters were excused for taking this passage literally. Today, however, few, if any, would want to make a geocentric case. I cite these examples because as worldviews change, so does the manner in which the Bible is interpreted. It could be no other way, as how we look at the world informs how we interpret the Bible.
    Being born into the world is like moving into a fully furnished house that was completely designed, decorated, and landscaped with no input from you. No thought was given to your taste, interests, preferences, needs or desires. You had no say whatsoever in any regard to your new abode. Our individual part of the world is like that. We had no choice as to our country of origin, language, form of government, even our religion. All of these preceded us in our world. The child’s whine that “It’s not fair!” is our first recognition of this reality. No, the world is not set up with us in mind.
    The world we inhabit presents itself to us as the “givens,” the things we take for granted, the things that “just are the way they are.” I doubt you worry too much that the sun may not rise tomorrow, or that the laws of aerodynamics may change mid-flight. Most of us reading this are well situated in our Newtonian universe.
    Generally speaking, we seldom give much thought to how we live, or why we do the things we do, or why things are the way they are. We accept our “houses” as they are presented to us and generally don’t object to much that is there. We easily accommodate the world around us, and this has been true from the beginning of human life. Whether this is good or bad is beside the point. It’s the way it is. This only becomes a problem when we fail to recognize that we are not self-made, that our opinions, sense of the real, values, and even mores are preconditioned in us. It is virtually impossible for us to completely step out of ourselves and examine our a prioris. And, failing to do so, we truly believe we are able to read the Bible without any encumbrances whatsoever, that we understand what we are reading as though it came from an angel from heaven. With Irenaeus, it’s just so obvious!
    It needs to be stated very forcefully and unequivocally that NO ONE looks at the world totally objectively. Although our “world houses” are all arranged differently, we all inhabit one. That means that all of us share one thing in common: our worlds, of necessity, will be seen differently. We cannot escape this; it is part of the human condition. This is one of the major reasons we see the Bible differently, and why those differences are often incomprehensible from another point of view.
    I believe that confidence in one’s opinions increases in direct proportion to the lack of perception of the forces that make us who we are. Conversely, as we become more alert to these forces, we find agreement of our views by others less important than the relationships formed themselves, that truth is found in grace more than in (elusive) absolutes, and that humility before the text opens more widows to heaven than any interpretive scheme. The answer to our differences is found in valuing the person more than needing to devalue that person’s opinions. But this is only possible if we don’t think of ourselves (and our opinions) more highly than we ought.
    Tomorrow’s post: “The Way Out: Finding Our Way Home”

  • Science, Religion, and Subjective Evidence

    Science, Religion, and Subjective Evidence

    Five Creation Books from EnergionIn our informal series of books on issues related to creation we’ve discussed how creation is represented in scripture, how one goes about forming a doctrine of creation that is truly Christian, and how someone who accepts evolution might reflect his in worship. Soon we will have a volume on how our understanding of God as creator impacts our lives now, and finally we’ll have a volume that talks about the basic science one needs to know about origins in order to understand the debates on the topic.
    Chris Eyre is one of our editors working out of the UK. He’s been working on editing the manuscript for Creation in Contemporary Experience, which is coming soon. He posted something today regarding science and religion, and the nature of internal or subjective evidence. Where does our experience stand as evidence? (Note that, as a good editor, he does not cite this forthcoming book in his post, but it is closely related.)
    In discussing such concepts of God as “ground of all being,” for example, he notes:

    They also, from my perspective, fail to explain all of the evidence, as they do not give any real insight into the mystical experience, the direct unmediated experience of God, which I take as a piece of evidence, as I mentioned above. They do have a transcendent aspect, which is singularly lacking in scientific materialism, and which is well harmonised with immanence of a sort, but it is a vastly impersonal immanence. The mystical experience is in my experience a vastly personal one, and I don’t find this reflected in “ground of all being” or “being itself” theologies, nor in the extremes of the God-of-absence of, for instance, Peter Rollins.
    I need something which at least explains the mystical experience as I have experienced it, which accounts for the evidence (albeit entirely personal) I have. …

    In his recent book Philosophy for Believers, Edward W. H. Vick occupies an entire chapter (6: Experience and God) on this topic. In this paragraph I hear a reflection of Chris’s discussion:

    For the theist the question of God is involved when the question
    of the purpose of existence is raised. At such point in our lives
    we may be faced with the question of the meaning of the whole,
    when ‘openings into the depths of life’ lead us to ask about the
    ground and goal of our existence. (p. 112)

    So what do you think? Is experience valid evidence? If so, does it operate only for the person who experiences, or can that evidence be shared?

  • Everyone Is An Atheist

    by Rick Wingrove

    I am an Atheist …
    By definition, Atheism means only that I have no belief in gods. To say the least, I find the stories about gods to be unconvincing. To say it another way, I find the ancient fables to be exactly as convincing as the stories about Santa Claus or Superman. As a thinking adult, I am under no obligation to believe what reason and experience show me to be false.
    We are all born atheists, without religious belief, without the concept of Reason, and without the ability to apply skepticism, but possessing a brain which soaks up information like a sponge, even if that information is erroneous. It is during this early, pliable phase when parents and society begin to pummel young, uncritical, defenseless minds with stories of the locally popular deities, omnipotent powers, eternal life, and the dire consequences that will accompany disbelief. With these stories comes a frightening prohibition against any form of skepticism, which inflicts permanent disability upon the ability to apply Reason. More than merely frightening, all deistic religions cap off their indoctrination by making it dangerous, even lethal, to ask simple, reasonable questions about the most fundamental elements of their faith. Questions and doubt are mental crimes and grievous insults to the supreme creator of the curious mind. Deistic religions demand immunity from examination. By crushing all inquiry, the religions have quieted opposition and rendered huge swaths of civilization permanently incapable of questioning the answers they have been given – answers without questions.
    Fortunately, it does not work on everyone, and despite the best efforts of the Southern Baptists, it did not work on me. Somehow I managed to retain my natural curiosity and, over time, I developed a healthy skepticism and an inability to blindly accept the ancient god stories without a more coherent set of explanations than was available in an ancient holy book. I slowly began to realize that what they were selling just wasn’t true.
    I did not arrive at this position lightly. I was raised in the church and every attempt was made to set my mind with Christian dogma. I read my bible and went regularly to services and church activities. I tried real hard for awhile to get a sense of “God”, but I sensed only absence. But as my skepticism grew, I couldn’t help but notice that the stories I was told were strikingly close to the old stories of the Greek and Norse gods, differing only in the details, not in credibility. The ancient and various tales – no more reliable or believable than campfire stories, really – about deities creating the Universe were such obvious mythology that they were quickly abandoned in favor of a more Scientific and rational examination. Reason and Science, the mechanisms for the acquisition and validation of knowledge, won out for the simple reason that they were actually capable of supplying answers.
    The disparity between the ancient fables and the realities of the Universe was most obvious when contrasting the biblical genesis tale against the discoveries about origins provided by the study of Cosmology. On origins, either cosmic or Human, the bible answered correctly in this area not once and corresponded to reality not at all. Instead, I turned to sources on astronomy and cosmology, and supplemented over time with evolution, quantum physics, history, sociology, and psychology. All these subjects taken together mesh into a coherent and rational explanation for the workings of the Universe. They also provide some perspective regarding the place of Humans in that Universe.
    A comprehensive explanation is not simple and cannot be reduced to verse-sized sound bites. It could never have been understood or discovered by uneducated, illiterate and credulous Humans thousands of years ago. Nor is it palatable to those who cling to the old stories. The explanations are complex, far-ranging, and inter-related. The explanations require thought and they require study; they require process and must stand up to rigorous examination. The explanations are in no way augmented by the insertion of magical deities. Observed, and validated facts diverged wildly from the guesswork of the ancients.
    In the end, religion made no sense to me. The gap between what the church taught and what reality showed could not be closed. I finally accepted that I was a natural-born, fully realized Atheist.
    In short, I am utterly convinced, that all the stories about all the thousands of gods ever proposed by Humans are concoctions based on fear and wishful thinking, and are not connected to objective reality. I am as certain that there are no gods as I am that there are no unicorns, or leprachauns, or monsters under the bed.
    I can justify saying that these things do not exist. To make such a statement will cause logical purists some heartburn due to the fact that it is never possible to prove a negative. But even the purists know that it is OK to stop searching for Unicorns.
    … and so are you.
    Now, the point of that whole semi-biographical roundabout was so that I can show that you are also an Atheist. All adamantly religious people are hard, committed Atheists. Just not very good ones.
    Just like myself, members of every religion, commonly claiming to be the One True Religion, hold every other religion, also commonly claiming to be the One True Religion, to be false. If you do the math on that you will see that the vast majority of people on this planet recognize your religion, whatever it may be, as pure fantasy.
    The atheism of the religious is not done after a careful weighing of the evidence. Nor is it done after a thorough ‘compare and contrast’ of the tenets of your religion against what is known about the workings of the Universe. True to the early indoctrination of your own religion, you just plain old don’t and won’t believe in the gods of the other religions. To you, just as they are to me, they are all obviously false and unworthy of further consideration. Proof is unnecessary and a waste of time as you summarily dismiss several thousand alleged gods without any thought whatsoever.
    When you examine your attitudes about all the other religions, you can understand exactly my attitude towards all those religions. Your view of all those religions varies from mine not in the least, not at all. In the case of each and every one of those alleged deities you are experiencing and pricticing pure, hard Atheism.
    Of all the thousands of gods that people have believed in, prayed to, and entrusted their wellbeing to, you retain belief, not surprisingly, only in your locally popular deity. When you do the math on that, you will see that, except for a small fraction of a percent, you are every bit the Atheist I am. The only difference is that my Atheism also applies to your local religion, while you persist in an inexplicable, irrational, and indefensible breach of consistency.
    A final word
    Is there a point to all this? Yes. There is an inherent contradiction built into every fundamentalist religion – open contempt for Atheists while practicing near universal Atheism towards all other religions. Those who are bent to religion frequently express incomprehension as to how an Atheist could not see the “truth” of the existence of their locally popular deity. Easy. Look to yourself – you do it all the time. You are an Atheist. Welcome to my world.
    Rick Wingrove
    30 December 2003

    Rick Wingrove is a navy veteran, a single parent, a taxpayer, a constitutional patriot, and a hard, assertive, full realization atheist. Rick is involved in political activism in defense of the First Amendment and is an adamant defender of the full separation of state and church. Rick recognizes the Establishment Clause as the most brilliant thing the Founding Fathers included in the Bill of Rights and that it has effectively prevented religious strife in this country for two centuries.
    For fun, Rick used to fly hanggliders, but now likes to travel, do woodwork and stained glass, dabble in photography, keep up with old friends, and watch his daughter grow up.
    Rick lives in the solidly conservative Christian bastion of Virginia, near DC, where he is appalled daily by the stupidity and pure evil emanating from inside the Beltway.
Energion Direct
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.