Believe What You Like? – A Blogersation (Part 4)

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

On Quixotic Belief

Professor Whitley has made a wonderful observation that aids my processing in this conversation. I cannot help but be swayed by his musing, "It may be, then, that we grow to 'like' that belief over time," and later, "I do like reason and logic and find my current position to be the most logical and reasonable and that also significantly adds to my present pleasure with this belief." The more convinced we are with a position, the more we are going to have some affinity for it.

William James writes: "not only as a matter of fact do we find our passional nature influencing us in our opinions, but that there are some options between opinions in which this influence must be regarded both as an inevitable and as a lawful determinant of our choice" (523). With science we achieve beliefs about the world around us (not to mention a belief in, or perhaps a love for a certain way to achieve knowledge/truth, as James points out on 523). But there are situations in which science cannot help us. In these, "faith based on desire is certainly a lawful and possibly an indispensable thing," according to James (524)

I don't think James is standing against Clifford in that last statement. James wants your beliefs to be examined. He doesn't want you to believe something on a whim, but rather on a justified desire. In this same vein, Louis Pojman says,

"I have argued that we cannot normally believe anything at all simply by willing to do so, for believing aims at truth and is not a basic act or a direct product of the will. If we could believe whatever we chose to believe simply by willing to do so, belief would not be about reality but about our wants. Nevertheless, the will does play an important indirect role in believing" (546-7).

Whether we like it or not, our likes are somehow involved in belief formation. At least, that is what I believe and I am growing to like it. On a certain level, I even like the cogitations on my continuing list of disliked beliefs.

7. I don't like believing two people who love each other cannot get married in some places of God's world.

Although I loathe this belief, I find some pleasure in believing empirical truths. I am also like hating this belief. On the one hand, I hate that people will not allow same-sex marriage. But on the other hand, I am far happier to acknowledge the fact and the resultant agony than to live in a blissful ignorance of the problem, like a Don Quixote without a Sancho Panza.

Don Quixote forced his observation of reality to conform to his beliefs about reality. He saw a windmill, but from a distance believed it to be a giant. He charged at it with his lance, attacking the windmill with a faith that would amaze the Jesus of the gospels. When Quixote finally attacked the windmill, reality hit him, and hard. Sancho Panza assumed Quixote would now realize his mistake, but instead, Quixote molded reality to his notions, saying a sorcerer had manipulated the events and put a windmill where there once was a giant.

8. I don't like believing two people who love each other cannot show their love for each other without being ostracized, yet they are continually forced to watch other couples express their love in public.

Out of context, this and other of Quixote's adventures speak to me of theology and reality. Sometimes my beloved theological positions meet reality, but match like a square peg and a circle hole. I have the option to switch out the peg, alter the hole, or pretend I have met a paradox. As much as I dislike switching out the peg (my theological position), I want the peg to fit reality and I like having a theology that doesn't have me needlessly injured by windmills.

9. I don't like believing people are not just told they are sinning, but also that who they are is a sin--an abomination before God, humanity, and nature.

I love hating this belief and I like that I recognize the reality of it. It is so easy to get caught up in a world of butterflies and rainbows, where things I don't like don't happen. But windmills pulverize me in that world.

Love of Truth or Love of Method?

This affinity for truth must not be confused with an affinity for a method to find that truth. When considering how we come to believe, I hope we "like" our beliefs based on how close we think they are to the truth, not based on how much we "like" a method for finding belief.

Consider Part 1 and Part 3 of our conversation again. In Part 1, you learn how this conversation started: people questioning the virtue of how I believe my beliefs. In Part 3, Thomas describes a shift in one of his beliefs, a belief he grew to like. Thomas' belief shift mirrored a shift in method for him. It wasn't just his belief shaken, but his belief in the method that founded the rest of his beliefs.

William James' words are apt here, too:

"[science] has fallen so deeply in love with the [scientific] method that one may even say she has ceased to care for truth by itself at all. It is only truth as technically verified that interests her. The truth of truths might come in merely affirmative form, and she would decline to touch it. Such truth as that, she might repeat with Clifford, would be stolen in defiance of her duty to mankind. Human passions, however, are stronger than technical rules" (523).

I went through a shift in belief like Thomas' once. I had to ask myself and address the following questions: Do you come to believe because of your passion for the truth, a passion that produces a liking for your beliefs? Or do you come to believe because you love to interpret the Bible without straying too far from tradition? Do you love the method (interpreting the Bible) or do you love truth? Need I even mention John 14?

I dislike beliefs 7, 8, and 9, because when reality met my theology, the method didn't win. Yes, I consulted the Bible, but I also consulted reality and the testimony of numerous people who have seen the Spirit move in GLBT Christians. In doing so, I believe I even consulted God.

And yes, I like that belief. Damn straight I like it. Not because of the method, because there wasn't exactly a method. It was a messy process of reasoning that eventual yielded in a "resonat[ion] not only in my head but in my heart" (@FemmeMinister). Some beliefs I like believing--they have a natural place in my heart. Other beliefs are resonant within me--I need them, because they convict me of truth, which I love.

With Thomas, Clifford, and Sancho Panza, I think beliefs deserve scrutiny. Beliefs should resonate with reverberations of truth, not warm fuzzies.

Works Cited
James, William. "The Will to Believe." The Theory of Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Writings. 3rd ed. Ed. Louis P. Pojman. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2003. 518-26.

Pojman, Louis P. "Believing, Willing, and the Ethics of Belief." The Theory of Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Writings. 3rd ed. Ed. Louis P. Pojman. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2003. 536-55.

N.B.: The disliked beliefs in this blog were chosen in honor of National Coming Out Day. For more information, click here.

Believe What You Like? – A Blogersation (Part 2)

My thoughts strayed to W. K. Clifford, Dr. T. Perry Hildreth, and epistemology in general when the right venerable Professor Thomas J. Whitley tweeted at me, "I'm just thinking aloud (silently?) in the twitterverse about how we come about believing what we do." He was explaining an earlier that I had first misunderstood: "I understand, on one hand, believing things you don't particularly like, but shouldn't we like/agree with most things we believe?"

We should agree with most things we believe. If someone disagrees with a belief, then I am unsure that person actually believes the belief. Of course, we might hold some beliefs unawares, especially deep-seated beliefs, latent beliefs, or beliefs leftover from a recent shift in thought. I might assume I do not "believe" monsters will come out of my closet in the dark, but I always shut the closet door before turning off the light at night due to a belief leftover from my childhood.

I might also be unable to stray from deep-seated beliefs, ones indoctrinated in me as a child. I recall Yossarian speaking with Lieutenant Scheisskopf's (unnamed) wife in Catch-22. The woman was upset at Yossarian's negative musings about God. Yossarian is surprised and says, "I thought you didn't believe in God?" She said, "'I don't,' she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. 'But the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make him out to be.'" Sometimes we cannot stop believing in our beliefs, even if we want to.

I'm still unsure about whether we should like most things we believe. At first rub, there seems nothing particularly virtuous or laudable about liking a belief. I imagine it would be pleasant to like all of your beliefs. But I don't think we should hold them because they are likable. I don't want my beliefs to be based on desire. Hopefully, amiable feelings will accompany the belief, but I do not think it should be a criterion. Unless, of course we consider most Western persons' foundational belief in reason and the ability of reasoning to produce knowledge. In this sense, liking our beliefs is virtuous, because we are not holding beliefs willy-nilly, but rather due to examination.

In a different vein, I assume I hold a number of my beliefs about metaphysics due to pleasure. Why do I believe in one God instead of many gods or no gods? I find the differing beliefs equally plausible (I think), but I believe in one God and have developed that belief, describing God as love. Why? Perhaps it is because I can't escape the belief after indoctrination in a Western, Christian home. Maybe it is because I like the idea of a God who is Love being the only God. Of course, I also like to think I have a relationship with the God beyond, behind, and around my concept of God and Love. If you have a relationship with something, you need to believe it exists (I think).

Right now, Thomas and our other conversation partners, I am a bit ambivalent, mostly due to a lack of knowledge on the subject. I dusted off my epistemology text book today, though: The Theory of Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Readings, edited by Louis P. Pojman. Hopefully I'll be ambitious enough to peruse the sections on beliefs and the ethics of belief. Until then, I hypothesize desire leads some of our most important beliefs, our beliefs about which I doubt we can have any sort of "knowledge"--metaphysical beliefs--whereas reason (which we believe in due to desire) determines most of our other beliefs that can be empirically verified to constitute what we might be able to call "knowledge."

Believe What You Like? – A Blogersation (Part 1)

I am not as tech-savvy as my friend Thomas, so I am not going to post the first part of our "blogersation" on belief and desire here. Instead, I will post a link: Believe What You Like? - A Blogersation (Part 1).

Thomas introduces the idea very well (and opens the blog by praising me), so I won't waste any keystrokes re-introducing the topic of our "blogersation" (neologism coined by Mr. Whitley).

I will emphasize how we want you to be a part of the blogersation. Please leave comments with thoughts or links to your blog(s) on the topic.

Blessings,
-t

On The Unforgivable: Grace & Impossibility in Jesus & Derrida

"Do you think there is such a thing as an unforgivable sin?"

My friends know I love spiritual, biblical, and theological conversations. Sometimes they even appreciate my opinions. A few evenings ago, one of my friends asked me the above question. My answer surprised me a little.

I first admitted my ignorance of Matthew 12:31-32. The Jesus of Matthew's Gospel says "blasphemy against the holy spirit will not be forgiven." I know the passage, but I have never done serious study into what the verse means. I haven't even spent significant time trying to understand the passage without outside study. I've heard other people talk about what the passage means, but I'm too skeptical to take their words for it.

Not surprisingly, I thought of Derrida's nearly incomprehensible words after I thought of Jesus'. In 1997, Derrida wrote On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, an intriguing combination of topics. And perhaps Derrida's thoughts aren't completely applicable. After all, my friend wondered not whether humans cannot forgive a certain sin, but rather if God could or would not forgive a certain sin or sins. Maybe Derrida's thoughts say more about God than I initially realized.

Derrida says, "We are all heir, at least, to persons or events marked, in an essential, interior, ineffaceable fashion, by crimes against humanity." A crime against humanity is "a crime against what is most sacred in the living, and thus already against the divine in man," and perhaps, in a sense, the blasphemy about which Matthew's Jesus speaks.

Derrida believes forgiveness should be "anecomonic," one should not forgive a sin because one wants to be forgiven. No one should give forgiveness in payment for a forgiveness or in expectation of a later forgiveness (cf. Matt. 18:21-35). In fact, for Derrida, anything that can be forgiven is not something needing forgiveness.

"If one is only prepared to forgive what appears forgivable, what the church calls 'venial sin', then the very idea of forgiveness would disappear. If there is something to forgive, it would be what in religious language is called mortal sin, the worst, the unforgivable crime or harm. From which comes the aporia, which can be described in its dry and implacable formality, without mercy: forgiveness forgives only the unforgivable. One cannot, or should not, forgive; there is only forgiveness, if there is any, where there is the unforgivable. That is to say that forgiveness must announce itself as impossibility itself. It can only be possible in doing the impossible."

I can't imagine Jesus would disagree with Derrida. Jesus made forgiveness sound sensational. A man in a parable does not forgive a debt and reaps condemnation. Peter asks how many times he should forgive his brother, who apparently commits a great amount of wrongs. Seven times? How about seventy times seven.

Jesus promotes the social justice of the Torah and Tanak, not the dueteronomic retributive justice upon which too many Christians focus. Retributive justice seems to have a place in society. The ancient Hebrew Torah set up retributive justice for their society to work. Today we continue it at the societal level with institutes for correction, however corrupt and non-corrective they are.

On the social level, Jesus and Derrida realize justice in a different sense, where we are all debtors like the man in Jesus' parable, all heirs to the most heinous of sins, all guilty. If we are all guilty, then forgiveness becomes impossible and necessary. But all of our sins are against ourselves and each other. "Forgiveness is ... mad. It must plunge, but lucidly, into the night of the unintelligible." It must happen in order to enter into relationship with others, with ourselves, and with God--the God in us and the God with us.

So we come again to Peter's famous question about how many times to forgive his brother. Jesus' answer is a ridiculous number intended for exaggeration, a hyperbole. Jesus' answer changes the concept of forgiveness completely. Jesus is not concerned with forgiving sins. "What would be a forgiveness that forgave only the forgivable?" Rather, Jesus is concerned with forgiving people.

Forgiving the forgivable forgives the past, which is doable, although sometimes hard. Forgiving a person means you forgive their future, too. Rationally, you cannot forgive something that hasn't happened. The unforgivable sin is the one that has not happened, but it is "the only thing to forgive[.] The only thing that calls for forgiveness." This is the only forgiveness that can be unconditional, the only forgiveness that is actually forgiveness.

"In principle, there is no limit to forgiveness, no measure, no moderation, no 'to what point?'"

And so it is with God, I believe. I still do not understand the whole bit about blasphemy against the spirit. But I imagine God forgives people, not sins. God is concerned with sins and wrongdoings, but God does not forgive those things. Things don't need forgiving, people do.

===

Derrida, Jacques. On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness. Trans. Mark Dooley and Michael Hughes. Thinking in Action. New York: Routledge, 2001. Originally published in 1997, in French.

How Is Leadership Different From Manipulation?

In class today, we listed qualities a leader should have. After the list was compiled, I asked, "How is this list different from qualities we want in a good person?" I was told the list looks similar because we want a good leader to be a good person.

The answer is novel, but not sufficient.

Thinking of our list, I can only roll my eyes. Of course a group of self-proclaimed church leaders will create a list of the loftiest requirements for a leader. I scoffed a little when I learned Cicero did the same thing as he delineated what a good orator must be. Removed from Cicero in time and space, it was easy for me to scoff at his list, especially since he completely disregarded a woman's ability to be an orator.

Scoffing turned to disgust when I read Samuel Johnson's prose about what separates a poet from the rest of the human world. Like Cicero before him and my class of church leaders today, Johnson compiled a list of qualities making poets seem like the most special people in the world.

I want to know what really makes a person a leader and not an ordained manipulator. Isn't a leader someone by whom a group of people want to be manipulated, told what to do, where to go, how to think, etc? How are church leaders more than people congregations assume are sent by God to manipulate?

I am not trying to be cynical. I really don't know the answer. What do you think? What separates a leader from other person? What separates a good leader from a good person?

Alter Ego Versus an Ego on the Altar

In this post, I am responding to a reading assignment and discussion from some of my classmates.

After Moses' spoke with God, he wore a veil to hide the fading brightness of his face. Moses wore this veil, this mask to create a distance between himself and the homeless, wandering Hebrews. The fading brightness of his face shows how people can change, how their ideals, their zeal, and their passion can fade overtime. Moses opted to be more constant and wore a veil.

In this event, we can see Moses an example of one who creates an alter ego (I am using Moses more as an illustration than I am actually saying what happened in the story). There was the Moses behind the veil and the Moses before the veil, who is the Moses people saw and with whom they interacted. The Moses behind the veil is the person Moses showed to God. But Moses spent more time with the people than with God. His alter ego became the ego. Eventually, Moses removed the veil, because of this change. The brightness left and the real Moses changed. The Moses behind the veil became the fake Moses, which is the person offered to God.

(Note, I am only giving one interpretation of this event and have no intention of calling Moses a bad person, a bad leader, or give him any other negative connotations than to say Moses was a human being like the rest of us. The following does not represent supersessionism or anti-judaism in my mind. Sorry if I unintentionally imply it.)

In Mark and other gospels, a veil in the temple is reportedly rent in two at Jesus' death. The rending of this veil can symbolize a similar rending of separate identities. As in the classic episode of the Twilight Zone, the longer we wear a mask, the more chances we have of becoming the person before the mask, the person people see in the mask.

The splitting of the veil can signify how our attempts at inauthenticity create an unintended authenticity. If I distance myself from my congregation, I am a different person with them, creating an alter ego. I give them a person who is not me. In time, however, I identify myself as a minister and I become the minister, the alter ego. Then person I give to my friends, family and God is less real. I will lead a split life. To me, this veiling and perceived distance can create more hurt and hinder more ministry than it will actually help.

But if I tear the veil recommended by some ministers, I create an intended authenticity. I become real with my congregations. Only when giving myself to my congregation can "I" actually be their minister. Instead of creating an alter ego, I create an ego on the altar, giving myself fully to God by giving myself fully to them.

I understand this stance can have downsides. Even our best decisions have "negative" side effects. After all, Jesus was mocked, excessively hurt, ostracized, and crucified. In not wearing a veil, Jesus even rent the veil that many perceived standing between humanity and God, a space many in power rented for themselves. Similarly, if we do not rend the space between the minister and those to whom we minister by becoming real, by becoming one of them, by deconstructing our role as different, then we rent out a space that is not ours, standing in between people and God.

Perhaps, as James Kay said, we might not always be "able to fulfill that role [of minister] for them, the very role which brought us together in the first place." Perhaps our inability to fulfill that role could be a blessing in itself, bringing the parishioner and the pastor face-to-face with God, instead of face-to-face with us.

The (Im)possibility of Loving God: A Romance

I was talking with a friend of mine recently. She told me she is only at the "liking stage" with God. "I haven't reached love," she said.

I was taught to love God. Loving God was just something I was supposed to do, like peeing in the potty. At the ripe old age of 5, I asked Jesus to come into my heart. It must have been love, because I had to stay late in the Bible lesson and miss snack time so I could say a prayer with the teacher lady.

Loving God was just something I did. As life went on, I stuck with God for various reasons. Sometimes I loved God to stay out of hell, which was a very real place to me. Looking back, I assume I feared hell more than I loved God. I didn't know what gnashing of teeth was, but it never sounded very pleasant.

I began to realize fear was a poor reason to cling to God. The author of 1 John writes, "We love him, because he first loved us." At some points in my life, I felt some need to be a part of that "we" and convinced myself to love God because God loved me first, not because of fear (1 Jn. 4:18-19). I graduated to loving God because God loved me. I didn't necessarily love God for God's character or personality, but because of God's affection--like adding someone to the Christmas card list because they sent you a card, not because you want to send them a card.

Tonight, I listened to Peter Rollins speaking with Rob Bell at Mars Hill Church up in Michigan (listen here). Bell asked Rollins to speak on love. Rollins said, in effect, you can't love someone you need. You can't have this desire, this longing, this emptiness, this need for someone you don't know, find them, and live happily ever after. Not even God.

If you need something, once you get it, you're fulfilled. Once you get it, you no longer need it. If I desire a glass of water, I drink and then I'm good (until I thirst again, of course). I don't need or desire it anymore. Neither do I love my faucet, because it gives me water. I don't love God because God gives me eternal life or gives me a sense of meaning or because I am supposed to. I don't love God because of any previous need I had, not even a need for God.

"Love is like this: [...] with people, you cannot desire or love someone you've never met, because you've never met them. [...] The romantic truth is this: I never needed you until I met you. But when I met you, I now realize I always needed you. The need is retroactively given" (Peter Rollins).

I've "loved" God for many reasons. I've "needed" God for just as many reasons. But it wasn't until I loved God that I needed God. It wasn't until I was able to conceive of meaning without God that I truly realized God makes sense. It wasn't until I could see beauty and truth in eternal life through progeny that I could receive eternal life from God. When I thought I might not need God for meaning or for eternal life, when I thought I couldn't love God, then I could love God and began to need God. When I began to struggle with loving God, when I began to get mad and reconsider my relationship with God--then I began to love God.

It has been touch and go since. I meet God often and a need for this God is retroactively given. Then I meet God again, realizing the God I met earlier is not the God I am now meeting and a new need is given. I continually realize the God is not the God I thought I knew. I guess that's what happens when you love someone: you begin to know them, again and again, and they always seem new to you and you always need that person.

I'm not always happy with the God I meet. God's not always happy with the me God meets. Now we need each other, because we once didn't need each other. If not for the possibility that one day we could meet anew and no longer need and no longer desire--if not for the possibility of divorce--then we wouldn't be bound so tightly together in a dynamic relationship.