George and Darren: The Finale
George Lippert
Darren Bell
George and Darren are having a conversation about faith and worldview. George is an artist/writer who is a christian, and Darren is an engineer who is an “agnostic.” The last several days they’ve been having a conversation on martyholman.com based on this question:
MH: In a world full of opinions and thoughts and gray, as opposed to previous eras of black and white, it can be tough to really know where someone’s coming from. As a writer/artist (George) and an engineer (Darren), What is the basis for your worldview?
They talked for some time of the Bible and rationalism and belief and knowledge and have shown the utmost respect for one another in the process. But coming to the end of the conversation, will it get intense? Here’s the finale of George and Darren. And in case you missed them -
part 1
part 2
part 3 – with Jeff
The first comment from George is from part 3, but is important to read before Darren responds, as Darren references several parts of George’s comments:
George Lippert: The claim that Truth is unknowable is, in itself, a Truth claim. What is the basis for this Truth claim? Using your previous comments, I’m led to the next few questions.
I appreciate that you use analogies. You describe us as people wandering aimlessly in a foggy wood. We are unable to know the full Truth about this wood because none of us can see the whole of it. I’ll call this the Holistic Quotient.
On the other hand, you compare Truth about spiritual matters (vague and disparate) to the Truth about the mass of an electron (measurable and uniform). I’ll call this the Disparity Quotient, and I think it is a very fair question, one that I consider myself at length.
The Holistic Quotient is one you already addressed by acknowledging that, eventually, one has to make logical assumptions based on the available evidence. Thus, you do not need to measure every electron on earth to determine a logical assumption of its mass. And yet you say that since we cannot experience the absolute totality of God’s alleged omnipotence, said omnipotence cannot be assumed. Why?
The Disparity Quotient is admittedly trickier, methinks. Still, how does disparity of beliefs about spiritual matters deny that there might be one absolute Truth? Many people might disagree about the contents of a mysterious box (think of the classic thought experiment of Schrodinger’s Cat), but that does not imply that there is not one constant truth regarding what actually IS in the box.
To claim that disparity of beliefs means there is no such thing as Truth seems to me like saying that in a world of second graders there would be no such thing as algebra. Mathematical Truths exist even if the second graders have no concept of them (although they themselves may deny it vehemently).
So. All that to say, how do you back up your Truth claim that there is no way of knowing Truth? I believe I know Truth (albeit in a limited form, revealed by God’s revelation through the Bible, and through NO act of wisdom, wit, or worth on my part). Your worldview denies mine. Therefore, I would be curious to know what your basis is for it. Why, in short, am I wrong?
Darren bell: I don’t actually have a problem with faith, but I believe faith should be put within reasonable limits. Faith should be salted by an understanding that as humans our perspectives are very limited, and we cannot make claims larger then what we actually have knowledge of.
I don’t believe any ground exists where it is possible to say that one religion is right and one is wrong, or that there is one true path, etc. To say that you need the top of the mountain view, and no human being has that.
All tertiary claims of having a top of the mountain perspective to me are no better. To say, “I do not have knowledge of the top of the mountain, but I know the creator of the mountain, and he told me what the mountain looks like from the top” or any variation of divine revelation through a secondary source whether person or book still claims to have irrefutable knowledge of the source. The source makes claims greater then humans can reasonably make, but you trust the source, so you allow it to make greater claims then you would yourself. At different points in our lives we all do this. I had a conversation with a friend of mine earlier this week about a relationship, and she was giving me advice and I recognized that in my current circumstances she had more perspective on my life then I did so I listened to her. Because I know her I trusted her and I recognized that my decision making ability was impaired.
I have three problems with extending what I mention above about my friend to religion. 1) I’m still responsible for that decision, and almost all of the facts surrounding the decision are obtainable by me, it’s just confusing. Meaning that the advice I accepted wasn’t out of the circle I have drawn around myself for what I can and cannot know, she was just helping me make sense of the facts I had in my circle. That I had observed or experienced firsthand and involve people I know. 2) The evidence required to substantiate the claims that because you know God in your own sphere means he is God everywhere and over everyone in order for you to extrapolate his seeming omnipotence to you to the universe are very high, and as far as I can tell unobtainable. 3) The subjectiveness of the argument, and the fact that the subjectiveness of spirituality does not lead to consensus but leads to dissent and that there are literally millions of people all claiming to know absolute truths, or claiming to know the creator that has told them the Truth, that contradict each other should concern any person. It is highly concerning.
In the 21st century we literally lock people up that say they have received divine revelation or know personally the God of the universe, unless they are part of an established church. I don’t believe any of the evidence of the Bible stands up to modern critique and the rigorousness by which we judge it is watered down because of it’s antiquity and the mysticism surrounding it. If anyone claimed that someone rose from the dead today we don’t believe them, it doesn’t matter how much proof they have or what they say. As modern people we believe that to be impossible. But it was possible 2000 years ago!
But in the end I concede that to my mind there is enough room for God even in the most reasonable and rigorously defined formulation of knowledge. Our doubts and unknowable are just too great. And though I have serious concerns about that moral compass of mine leading me towards religion just being sociological and cultural baggage . . . there the needle rests none the less.
Faith salted in this way leads to respect of other people, it leads to humility when viewing yourself and it leads to you putting yourself in a worldview that includes other people and is able to be widened by others experiences also.
GL: Thanks Darren.
Just to respond to a few things:
1) I actually don’t have a problem with a subjective experience of religion/God, although I can see how it might seem that way from what I said. Any religious experience is a very personal, subjective thing. I DO believe it is a problem when one’s subjective/speculative experience of God is the primary basis of their belief. We humans are simply too unreliable, distracted, fallen, and selfish to be trustworthy in that regard. This is why I choose to trust external revelation– i.e. the Bible.
2) I am intrigued by the idea of personal balance. We are more than purely intellectual beings, just as we are more than purely spiritual or emotional beings. I suspect that our beliefs (not only about spiritual things) become flawed when we rely too heavily on only one of those resources.
Darren, I admit that if I had your mind, I suspect it would be very hard for me not to filter all of my beliefs (or lack thereof) about Truth through the hard lens of empirical evidence. For another person, they might choose not to engage their clinical intellect at all, instead rejecting some beliefs based on the fact that they don’t “feel genuine”. Another person might believe or disbelieve based on some personal mystical speculation gleaned from spiritual meditations.
In short, I wonder if potential Truth can only be grasped (albeit imperfectly) when one balances all the facets of our humanity? Does that make sense?
I have not attained balance, but I will say this: where my intellect fails me in my belief, my spiritual experience of God’s truth takes over. Where my spiritual experience of God’s truth fails me, my emotional assurance of God’s fatherhood takes over. These are hardly perfect, and frankly I still struggle quite a lot from time to time (especially if I allow only one of those aspects of my humanity to exert too much influence), but all told, this is where my belief in Truth holds: in the web between intellect, spirituality, and emotion.
Thus far, I respect your perspectives Darren (and I sometimes share them, at least a little), but while I see that your worldview makes a certain kind of sense, I don’t see how it denies that there might indeed be a Truth– or that the revelation of God through the Bible might be wrong. Nor do I see exactly how a lack of PERFECT intellectual understanding of the totality of Truth means that one must reject any form of the concept (anymore than failing to grasp calculus is a reason to assume that it is impossible to know or does not exist). I appreciate that it is a struggle, though, and a messy one.
But honestly, here’s the nub of it: if Christianity isn’t true for everyone, then it isn’t true at all. That’s evident in Jesus’ own words. Call it arrogant, simple-minded, and culturally insensitive, but none of those things are arguments against the veracity of the claim.
But I appreciate being sharpened on these things and being pressed to think carefully about them. I look forward to more.
DB: I wouldn’t say that my worldview denies that there might be Truth, or even that the Bible reveals God through revelation. I like your analogy about the second graders and algebra, but the only thing I would say about it is that you say that second graders can’t comprehend something higher then them, but that that higher thing exists in spite of their knowledge of it. And yet, if you give second graders the chance to advance mathematics . . . you would wind up short of algebra or calculus. You would end up with a mess.
Sans an algebra book of course, which is what we all claim we have.
Here indeed is the crux of the whole issue:
“But honestly, here’s the nub of it: if Christianity isn’t true for everyone, then it isn’t true at all. That’s evident in Jesus’ own words. Call it arrogant, simple-minded, and culturally insensitive, but none of those things are arguments against the veracity of the claim.”
I agree with you that this doctrine is true. And it is the chief conflict of my religious thought at the moment.
Because I assert that you do not have the authority to say such a thing. To make such a claim. And more to the point: I think it is too far reaching to allow the Bible the authority to make such a point.
It is beyond what it is possible for a human to know. I do not believe that any amount of historical or psychological evidence can support the claim (especially in light of the conflict of other people against such views) that the Bible is the revelation from God that is applicable to all human beings.
The more I look at myself and the arguments and evidence I rely on. The more I see other people saying the opposite thing from me who rely on the same subjective experiences, cultural momentum and historical evidences backing up their antithesis. And it shakes my foundations and makes me questions the basis of all my beliefs, correctly so.
That being said, I don’t reject that God may exist. But my rationality forces me to frame God within my known limits of what I can have the ability to declare. I do not have the ability to know whether the Bible is God’s inerrant word for all human kind, and therefore I do not claim it is, regardless of the fact that according to it’s internal doctrine I must claim that in order to adhere to it perfectly. I can BELIEVE, I can have FAITH, but I cannot KNOW.
GL: I like it when we find places that we can agree upon, even if our perspectives on them are totally different. Again, I suspect this could go on forever, so for now I am content to say “good topic everybody!”
