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.

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!”

George Lippert

Darren Bell

Round three took place on a quiet Monday afternoon, as George worked at his computer in St. Louis and Darren nodded off at his workplace in Philly.  But just when things were starting to quiet down, my friend Jeff asked to read the conversation, and believing the conversation to be a part of an ‘all-in’ facebook thread, he intervened, and brought new life to the conversation.  You can read parts 1 and 2 here and here.

Jeff Campbell (JC):  This is Jeff Campbell. What an awesome go around. There’s a whole bunch of things I’d love to chime in on. But I think I’d like to muddy the waters in one quite specific way. I think this really applies to both of the positions I’ve seen lain out here.
The question (which I’ll admit is a wee bit loaded) for me is this:
In most of our relationships, we don’t wander around looking for propositionally sound logic. I don’t make any attempt to inductively or deductively prove my love for my wife.
Why does this appear to be our sole mode of discussion about God?
I’ll buy that some of this belongs– since George has never met my wife (Darren has) I might owe him some sort of scientific/mathematically sound argument to prove her existence.
I believe in Truth with a capital T but agnowledge I only percieve truth with a lower case t; I believe the whole thing is wonderously and glorioiusly subjective in this life…
Any thoughts?

Jeff Campbell

GL:  Hi Jeff,

Just to try a quick stab at this: as you say, if I (for some reason) decided to deny that your wife exists, it would not be enough for you to tell me that she exists because you love her. I would require SOME sort of scientific, objective proof. While I myself am content that the Bible’s claims are true, that Christianity is the one way to God, etc, I respect the doubts of those who require more concrete, measurable evidence. In the case of your wife, you could merely point at her and say, “there she is,” case closed. Making the case for Christian belief with those who do not immediately except the inerrency of the Bible (or my subjective experience of it), etc, is a very different prospect.

Fortunately, I think the truth of Christianity can indeed be shown (although not conclusively proven) by historical, psychological evidence. As you know, many skeptics have approached the historical record with intention to disprove Christianity only to become converts themselves.

Thus, I am reluctant to merely state “Christianity is true because this is how it subjectively effects me”. The Truth is not true because I believe it. It’s true even if no one believes it. That’s what makes it Truth. I respect the doubter and the true skeptic enough to deal with the issue on their terms.

At least, as much as possible.

DB:

George Lippert

Darren Bell

George Lippert and Darren Bell.

A creative  and an engineer, both who happen to be friends of mine, and today I’d like to introduce you to a new feature of Martyholman.com.  Both George and Darren are really really smart.  Now I wouldn’t tell them this, but when I see them write on facebook or their blogs or when I chat with them, their insight and thoughts have inspired me to think more, so as a connector, I had an idea.

Why not get them to help more people think in a gentleman’s dual of intellect.

So I asked George and Darren, as two men who think very different from one another in some ways, and very much alike in others, to answer a question that I would ask via email, and then chat back and forth about their answers.  Along the way, Jeff Campbell gets involved in the conversation, and he makes things even more interesting.  Because this conversation was so lengthy, these posts will last most of the week.  I trust you’ll be inspired to think thorugh their conversation and ask questions to all the participants.  So I’d like to introduce you to George (GL) and Darren (DB).

MH:  So tell us a bit about yourselves.

George Lippert:  I’m a full time CG artist and part-time writer currently haunting the suburbs of St. Louis. Between being a husband, a father of two awesome little kidlets, paying taxes, cooking Mexican food, mowing the lawn, keeping my 100-year-old house from falling down, and playing lots of racing video games, I formulate lots and lots of “controversial” opinions. Some of them I will surely share below.

Darren Bell:  I’m Darren Bell. I’m a Chemical Engineer living in Philadelphia that lived for 6 years in New England mostly going to college and one of those years attending Fellowship Church. Spiritually I’ve been all over the spectrum from an Ayn Rand-esque athiest to going through 40 Days of Purpose. The last couple years I’ve been away from the church and Christianity, in the past 6 months I’ve found a church I really like in Philadelphia. Although aesthetically something appeals to me in Christianity and also I find it helpful to be reminded of certain morals I tend to forget I am pretty much agnostic.

I made a video yesterday for our service @ Fellowship.  It wasn’t a bad video and it illustrated the point I was trying to make very clearly.  I attempted to demonstrate James 1: 23,24 which says:

Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

So I had this idea.  I have a mirror in my office, and each Sunday morning before I go to preach I check myself for inconsistencies in my dress code like a zipper not reaching new heights or toilet paper on my person or a collar going rogue.  So I thought, “what about illustrating these verses by showing me checking myself in the mirror in my office and then ignoring some obvious problems, complete with a Star Wars musical score in the background?

I thought the video was quite good for the time I had to make it, but in it I missed a huge detail!  My mirror was filthy.  And the camera was clear enough to see this detailed faux pas.  I’m sure it didn’t get unnoticed, and I felt really stupid.  But then I thought, “This is probably what happens when I look at ‘the Bible’ to justify my own stance on what’s right and allow it to fit into my system of thinking, rather than allowing it to be alive as it claims to be and , so it can ‘judge the thoughts and attitudes of my heart’ and then ‘teach, rebuke, correct, and train me in righteousness’.”  My thoughts begin to skew what the Word of God through the Spirit of God (because that’s how this is powerful, not because of a piece of paper) wants to reveal to me, and probably I walk away distorting what God really wants for my life.

Literally I look into a mirror that’s dirty (my perspective outside of the Spirit of God) and walk away without a good understanding of how I can best “abide in Christ”.

A guy at my church asked me a great question about the Bible the other day, and I answered him in an extensive, drawn out type answer that took a while to research.  In the midst of my research on the question, I found this article by NT Wright, who, in my humble opinion is the man, and at the same time is not trying to be the man.  In the aforelinked article, Wright asserts:

“The Christian Bible we know is a quite astonishingly complete story, from Chaos to Order, from first creation to new creation, from the Garden to the City, from covenant to renewed covenant, and all fitting together in a way that none of the authors can have seen but which we, standing back from the finished product, can only marvel at.”

This is a great article and worthy of your reading time, but something that stuck out to me – a question I would like to raise – is this:  Do we do Scripture injustice by giving “new believers” excerpts of Scripture, specifically John and Romans, in an effort to teach them a specific theology bent relevant to these two books?

I mean, in one sense, I understand that all Scripture is powerful, in that it is inspired by God, and so excerpts are fine, no matter what books of the Bible they carry.  But that’s not why we offer up those two books as relevant to those who are “new to the faith”, is it?  We want them to read those two books because we want them to believe what we believe – I think – about the Bible, and our thought is that if they read those two books first, what we believe will come easier to them.

I’m not a legalist about this thought, in fact, it’s just a thought.  But I wonder if we take the appropriate story out of the Bible when we hand someone an excerpt of Scripture, and say, “Here you go.  You don’t need to know why you need salvation, redemption, and the like.  You just need to know that you do.  So get in the Christian line, sis (or bro, if she is a he).

Right now I’ve just finished Deutoronomy, and am reading Isaiah and Hebrews, and the light bulb just kind of clicked on today reading each of these books, that I wonder if people are missing out on the full experience at first because the meat is so important that we forget the forks and diningware, not to mention the appetizers?

It’s just a thought, but I’d like to hear yours.