Leaving the Buddhism Lecture at one in the afternoon, I couldn't help but notice just how hungry I was. Unfortunately, this being Friday, I was also skint, and home is a 12 minute cycle away at a choppy pace. There was however the text message in my pocket, received at somepoint between the question of just how influenced Gautama had been by Brahminism and examples of BC representations of him where they refused to portray him as a man (opting instead for tree, wheel, Stupa): 'Hi Nathan it's mj...Talk at the Mitre...Free Lunch...lovely to see you again'. True, it had been a while since I had seen her, and I did feel bad for never replying to her email about Mary. More importantly the Mitre is only a minute away by bike, and that's going slowly. Lunch, for free too, just one minute away. All I had to do was sit through some talk or other. Not a problem.
Of course, actually I knew exactly what was going on at the Mitre - Big Issues, hosted by OICCU, The Oxford Christian Union. The last time I had been goaded in by the prospect of a 'free' lunch, I had left distinctly irritated, if not scandalised by the apologetics of the man they had brought in. I forget precisely what he said but I do recall that his account of reason and revelation from his perspective made it rather difficult to maintain the exclusive truth of the christian religion, something he was simultaneously quite keen to assert, amongst other things. And it's so hard (though in truth I do get a rather wicked little twinge of pleasure) to tell all those nice, smiling people how little you thought of speaker's arguments, only occasionally explaining why.
But who knows? Maybe he was just a bad speaker, maybe the quality is usually better. Fair enough, in dealing with this particular topic, something like 'Did God make Man or Man make God?' I didn't expect in 40-odd minutes much of a foray into secular understandings of the origin of religion (Note to self: read those notes given to you on Clifford Geertz) or a particularly systematic approach looking closely at how faith may fit in with modern epistemological positions or much like that. But still, what was left left me distinctly irritated, nay scandalised! At first he engendered my sympathy, this speaker, he apologised for the unnecessarily androcentric title of the talk which apparently had not been his decision, and then started what Kierkegaard might call a platitudinous introduction sounding of bad things 'christians' had said treating God as a 'ventriloquist's dummy' (no mention of just how sincere and genuine these people's faiths might have been, it seemed tacitly assumed that they are at best erroneous fools with no real understanding of the bible, or at worst cynical hypocrites manipulating the externals of religion to further their own, rather more worldly power).
Then he manages to make a dig at atheism, and those rather soft targets of certain 20th century dictators. I'll admit I was quite busy adding cheese to a roll at this point but he may well have upheld Godwin's Law, I certainly heard 'Stalin' thrown in at any rate. And points out atheists say 'well that's not what atheism is'. Seemingly assuming that there is beyond the denial of deity their is an essential atheism, that is 'more true' than other atheisms, not to mention that atheism in this model is taken to be the prime cause of these atrocities, which is grossly unfair, particularly since he had just been making the point that allegiance to a deity emphatically does little to prevent atrocities. I kind of have an issue or two with treating atheism as analogous to christianity in that they 'should' feel the responsibility of history and former generations, feel all bound together and things like that. I'm pretty sure they're not quite encumbered as a Christian, since an atheist is not bound to tradition and can freely reject what they see as 'unreasonable' (even if their particular reasoning is not always completely coherent) .
Anyway, if I carry on listing all my criticisms of the talk I shall be here all day so I shall simply chart them out in brief and try to keep the guttersniping to a minimum. So, the thing is it very quickly became a talk on Evidence for God. The attempt was to try and preserve the full-force of revealed (and of course Evangelical) Christianity (Liberal christians coincidentally, much like the bad christians mentioned above, don't take their positions from good faith, but merely, cynically, pick and choose what they like and don't like and maintain and discard it accordingly) under the sort of theoretical suppositions consonant with Post-enlightenment (though not really postmodern, that wasn't touched upon) thought. Thus the speaker wished, in a nutshell, to argue that there was a 'bridge' over the gap between faith a reason, so one can happily walk from one to other, under a system of thought that had systematically burned it quite a while back, or so I thought.
So what are ther easoned and empiracle evidences for God. True to Evangelical style he boiled it down to 'Three Es' Experience, Evidence (..?) and I forget the third one.
Religious experience of course, speaks for itself, and is quite a powerful reason for many of course because in all sincereity they really felt like they were feeling 'something'. Of course there's no reason at the same time to conclude in the truth of a Trinitarian God and an Incarnate Son raised from the Dead etc. etc. from seeing a particualrly pretty sunset (one of his examples). Feelings are not the same as content. More interesting was the experience that comes from a specifically 'religious' activity (he cited 'hearing the voice of God' as someone read out the bible) but again, no discussion on how far this relies on presupposed ideas of God that can be gained from general exposure to local culture, one may also legitimately wonder how far along these matters one has gone if their in a context where they can not only hear a bible being read out, but are in fact listening to it. Since we had already begun from the point that the 'true god' was the bible-based one, it was a little surprising that no space was given over to the question as to how the sensation of the numinous from a different religious persuasion was less legitimate, or what one is meant to do when such a 'feeling' takes them in a different religious context- talking from my own experience as one of the baptised, I have felt the God-itch when hearing the Qu'ran read out at a mosque and whilst watching worshippers in a Hindu temple - should I therefore, on the strength of these incoherent feelings conclude that thier religious systems are also true?
Evidence was a quite good one too. He begins by noting that in the experienced realm, we can't be certain of everything, his example was crossing the road, he noted there just might be a patch of superglue in the road and their just might be a steamroller coming round the corner at the same time, yet we did not expect to die whilst crossing the road to get to this talk. Then comes my favourite bit. THEREFORE we shouldn't worry if we can't be 100% 'philosophically certain' (that phrase kept cropping up an awful lot in this 12 minute slot) about the existence of God. Our evidence from life indicates we're unlikely to die crossing the road, and we also have evidence for God...wait for it...from the BIBLE! (stoppit nathan, don't be so condescending). That's right coming to faith is just like crossing the road. An assumption of not dying based on a huge repository of direct experience whilst traversing some tarmac is strictly analogous with trusting a source which can't be verified by experience (the gap of 2000ish years and all that) discussing something which, ultimately, according to Christian tradition has no directly comparable object in creation ayway (that being God obviously). Even better that he used the Gospel of Luke which specifically declares itself to be at least a second-hand account, the author hasn't even verified it by experience.
And because the book says Jesus committed Miracles (something I do not commonly experience) and came back from the dead (again something rather unusual) we should take it as historical fact. Merely on the strength that the author himself has declared this to be an orderly account derived from eyewitnesses.
We then rather career of track a bit by learning that God can speak directly to us through the words of the text, and a good prayer is apparently 'God, if you exist, please speak to me now'. My head still spins from trying to work out this preposterous request. And if a total nonbeliever actually said that in all sincerity and then heard nothing, would the speaker then count that as a legitimate nonexperience of God confirming the truth of atheism? Of course now we're on the matter of experience again...I'm sensing some blurring of the categories here...it's almost like he just plucked three E's as a rhetorical device and just tried to squeeze his arguments into them.
'This is hell' I'm thinking by now. Actually I'm not, I'm thinking I'm back in Sunday school as a six year old. The table with the orange and blackcurrant squashes in plastic cups is not dispelling this comparison. Thinking about Sunday School though, perhaps hell is not quite so far from the truth after all. MJ, now to my left, looks quite unimpressed as well. I'm glad I'm not the only one.
I must admit I didn't quite catch all of E number three, I was too drawn into thinking why I wasn't outside in the sunshine, or how much I wanted to throw a javelin in his foot. Why a javelin or his foot specifically I couldn't tell you but there it is. I do distinctly recall it was the argument drawn from moral reasoning, a delicate conflation of the question of where moral sense comes from and how can we know what is right and wrong. Highlighting the absurdity of morality based solely on majority opinion, he nevertheless declined to offer any other arguments against theories of morality which are slightly closer to reality.
Then at some point in the questions, he noted a conflict between his feelings on the matter of the exclusive claims of Christ to the truth (contentious interpretation of the bible of course but I'll move on without further comment) and his own, more ecumenical feelings. But if his sense of right and wrong is derived from God....and the Bible is also from God...but you don't like what it says... He also notes God gives us space for grey in morality without seemingly appreciating that his system ultimately demands a right and wrong eventually and gave no clue as to how we weigh up conflicting positions (though perhaps the last bit is the unstated answer...intriguingly he cited abortion as one of these sensitive areas, which may well mean that I actually have found something where I am the more inflexible one, but I don't know how far he feels about it really). He also noted morality as 'progressive' for humanity, New Testament beats Old but it doesn't seem to occur to him to question whether anything beats New...
I'm not really angry, but this facile, muddled, feeble Christianity is surely a poison for anyone who does a little thinking about it. How that man was able to reach that age and come to this line of thought does leave one wondering about the abilities of most teachers in Christendom. Truly I went partly because in the morning I had been pondering the word's of a friend when she noted that Anglo-Catholicism is a rather negative identity in many respects, derived from a rejection of Evangelicalism (and I might and concurrent with, of course, a rejection of the Roman Catholic Church) which made me wonder about the blind-spots of such a faith, particularly since I know of a few at least who in their own lives have lived out this historical trajectory. Yet if this is what I left behind, then suddenly I don't feel quite so bad about it. This foolish speaker who fails to see the enormous consequences of the system he proposes, its thoroughly absurd claims (Kierkegaard has clearly really got to me already!) and outrageous demands on the subject. Really it's just a snap, a mountain view and suddenly finding the Golden Rule quite congenial when Jesus says it. It's...odd. He may as well have just read out some C. S. Lewis (I hear Evangelicals like his apologetic work a lot) at least it might be coherant in itself, distinctly more useful and edifying than that dribbling sophistry.
Humbug I say. Humbug. Still, in fairness it makes sure I can never be too complacent in sloppy thinking and it does pose the question 'so how do you justify it?' a question I am perhaps not ready to answer to anyone's satisfaction. Big religious statements, as far as I can see, deal with what is at heart a mystery and any assertion relies in part of pre-formed, potentially uncritical opinions- the wealth of theological reflection would not be so if one had to justify outside the bracket of revelation certain facts and ideas that have grown within it. And whatever 'natural' arguments I might care to formulate certainly do nothing to defend the entire integrity of either the Christian tradition or an exclusive truth claim it purports to have. I puzzle as to whether I could break from a westernized idea of thinking about it all in terms of the self and individual before whatever divinity. Still if there was ever an answer to the question 'can man make god in his own image?' it must surely be found in this man who was so ready to dismiss christians with sharply differing viewpoints as false and who was able to rattle off the 'moral certainties' that the Bible offered up...one perhaps sees hints of an answer.
