Post by lunalelle on Apr 10, 2009 15:52:49 GMT -5
Questions, Questions Everwhere Part I
I should probably re-evaluate where I am in my beliefs or lack thereof now and again to see if any changes have occurred while I wasn't paying attention. I have not yet continued on my biblical journey, but work in a faith-based situation forces me to confront my disbelief head-on sometimes. Especially over the last few weeks, when I assigned myself three op-ed-like articles rich in theological questioning.
The mental gymnastics I had to go through was astounding. I have no trouble writing things I don't believe in when I'm writing fiction. But when an opinion I disagree with is suddenly attached to my name, it becomes so much harder. To clarify, I'm devoted to whatever job I do and do not try to undermine from the inside - while writing the articles, I wrote from the perspective of a devoted, moderately conservative Christian. The articles, which I am absurdly proud of, are genuine and sincere, even if I can explain why I think they are wrong. They were looked over by a minister I deeply respect, so the theology in them seems to be sound.
And that's mostly because I completely avoided the questions that came up, brick walls of theology I kept hitting. At this point, I'm convinced that theology is a maze without an exit. Every time I boil down questions from questions from questions, I hit several walls: God's purpose, God's less admirable traits, and the problem of faith.
Why did God create the world and put humans in it? I get that he did it because he wanted to (indicated in Psalms, Colossians, and Revelation), but to add that he did it for his own glorification becomes confusing to me, although it seems to be biblically based. Who is he trying to impress? Who is he showing off to with his wonderful and terrible magic? Humans? We're his creations, and he is so much bigger than us. He doesn't need our approval or awe. And if he made humans to worship him, it was an awfully inefficient way of doing it.
If angels can see, know, and refuse to worship God, how fewer people who are told that God chooses not to be self-evident will find their way to believing in God by something other than birth? (i.e. indoctrination - Sorry, it just happens across the board with children, and it's not necessarily a terrible thing in itself. It may even be impossible to avoid.) It is easy now to see shades of a complacent Christian majority after centuries of imperial indoctrination (a.k.a. conversion at knife or gun point). But when you realize that the One True God revealed himself to just a small group of people over a long period of human history according to the Bible ... not so efficient in terms of glorification. So God wants us to be able to choose him? But angels make that same choice. A third of the multitude of angels fell in the great heavenly war, according to theology of heaven, hell, angels, and demons. Which implies that they have free will as well.
More than the redundancy of humans, I'm baffled at the necessity of earth at all when it comes to choosing God, since beings on heaven and on earth have free will to choose. The most coherent answer I got for earth's purpose and the purpose for humanity is as a vehicle for God's salvation at a distance. But that throws the creation story in a troubling light - namely, that God made us to fall so that he could save us. This indicates that sin was part of his plan all along. That the divine disapproval, that the fallen state of the world, was on the agenda and not contrary to God's will - simply contrary to his whim.
And that brings up God's nature. Whenever I imagine him to talk to (I do this with both real and fictional people to work through arguments in my head), God always ends up as evil as he is good. If Christianity can suspend rationality at contradiction regarding the concept of Jesus as wholly divine and wholly human or the Trinity as equally three and one (I seem to be able to do that with no problem at all), it should not be such a stretch to imagine a God as purely evil and purely good. It would make so much more sense when reading the Bible and viewing the world. When tragedy strikes, we would not ask where God was because his presence in evil would be undeniable. A biblical God for whom suffering is purifying, a God as present in a whirlwind as a whisper, a God that saves the world and a God who condemns it. The evershifting whimsy of the God of the Bible would still be frustrating, still horrifying, but at least the chaos would be explained in context of Christianity. At the pleasure of the Lord, for he is your creator. Maybe you would not want to worship such a God, but at least that kind of a God - a God for whom sin and punishment are a part of his all-powerful plan - could be believed. And an evil side to a god hasn't stopped some other religious people from worshiping their deity.
As it is, the description of a benevolent God who is apparently thwarted in his creation by sin that is apparently only the fault of man ... that does not support the theology of God omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. And the next person who says evil is the absence of God is going to get a proverbial mace in his ass. Because under the assumption that god is omniscient, there is nowhere that God is not. This also supports the problem of evil as contrary to God's will and nature.
The disturbing problem of faith and wisdom will be addressed in a future post, but I have talked about it a little before.
So that's where I am right now. The more I seek answers to get me back into Christianity, the farther away I get. I'm very conscious that the only reason I seek God is because hell frightens me. And possibly worse, a crippling fear of being wrong.
By nature, I am a truth-seeker. I want answers, and when I can't find them, my quest can reach a level of manic obsessiveness that is probably not healthy. So even if I didn't end up believing in the answers I got, I would be glad for the answers. But they seem nowhere to be found. Too often I come across the great biblical cop-out: "God is so much bigger than you with your puny mind. Hie is God, and who are you to question him?" I say biblical because it is the answer to many of my questions about the nature of the world and God in the book of Job. All I can say in response is that the answer is insufficient. If God managed to divinely inspire so many writings in human tongues, why was he incapable of simplifying these answer into human terms? Instead, he comes to Job in a whirlwind to impress, then says that he is the creator and who are we to ask?
We are humans - beautifully inquisitive, much like many of our mammalian brethren. We ask questions of the world around us. Much blood and ink has been shed in the search for answers, and not just from me. God seemed perfectly comfortable providing answers for so much else. His answer in Job seems small when smashed in the middle of a giant book full of words to attempt to answer human questioning. If the answer in Job had ever been enough, libraries would be empty, and Jesus would not have needed to ever speak. If I (among so many others) have the mental capacity for the question, God should have the power to answer.
This pursuit for answers is a time-honored and even biblical endeavor. It is so much a part of me that I probably have an amusing look on my face when someone tells me that they don't or never have these questions, nor do they need the answers. I will not have this taken from me, nor my anger and frustration made small.
I should probably re-evaluate where I am in my beliefs or lack thereof now and again to see if any changes have occurred while I wasn't paying attention. I have not yet continued on my biblical journey, but work in a faith-based situation forces me to confront my disbelief head-on sometimes. Especially over the last few weeks, when I assigned myself three op-ed-like articles rich in theological questioning.
The mental gymnastics I had to go through was astounding. I have no trouble writing things I don't believe in when I'm writing fiction. But when an opinion I disagree with is suddenly attached to my name, it becomes so much harder. To clarify, I'm devoted to whatever job I do and do not try to undermine from the inside - while writing the articles, I wrote from the perspective of a devoted, moderately conservative Christian. The articles, which I am absurdly proud of, are genuine and sincere, even if I can explain why I think they are wrong. They were looked over by a minister I deeply respect, so the theology in them seems to be sound.
And that's mostly because I completely avoided the questions that came up, brick walls of theology I kept hitting. At this point, I'm convinced that theology is a maze without an exit. Every time I boil down questions from questions from questions, I hit several walls: God's purpose, God's less admirable traits, and the problem of faith.
Why did God create the world and put humans in it? I get that he did it because he wanted to (indicated in Psalms, Colossians, and Revelation), but to add that he did it for his own glorification becomes confusing to me, although it seems to be biblically based. Who is he trying to impress? Who is he showing off to with his wonderful and terrible magic? Humans? We're his creations, and he is so much bigger than us. He doesn't need our approval or awe. And if he made humans to worship him, it was an awfully inefficient way of doing it.
If angels can see, know, and refuse to worship God, how fewer people who are told that God chooses not to be self-evident will find their way to believing in God by something other than birth? (i.e. indoctrination - Sorry, it just happens across the board with children, and it's not necessarily a terrible thing in itself. It may even be impossible to avoid.) It is easy now to see shades of a complacent Christian majority after centuries of imperial indoctrination (a.k.a. conversion at knife or gun point). But when you realize that the One True God revealed himself to just a small group of people over a long period of human history according to the Bible ... not so efficient in terms of glorification. So God wants us to be able to choose him? But angels make that same choice. A third of the multitude of angels fell in the great heavenly war, according to theology of heaven, hell, angels, and demons. Which implies that they have free will as well.
More than the redundancy of humans, I'm baffled at the necessity of earth at all when it comes to choosing God, since beings on heaven and on earth have free will to choose. The most coherent answer I got for earth's purpose and the purpose for humanity is as a vehicle for God's salvation at a distance. But that throws the creation story in a troubling light - namely, that God made us to fall so that he could save us. This indicates that sin was part of his plan all along. That the divine disapproval, that the fallen state of the world, was on the agenda and not contrary to God's will - simply contrary to his whim.
And that brings up God's nature. Whenever I imagine him to talk to (I do this with both real and fictional people to work through arguments in my head), God always ends up as evil as he is good. If Christianity can suspend rationality at contradiction regarding the concept of Jesus as wholly divine and wholly human or the Trinity as equally three and one (I seem to be able to do that with no problem at all), it should not be such a stretch to imagine a God as purely evil and purely good. It would make so much more sense when reading the Bible and viewing the world. When tragedy strikes, we would not ask where God was because his presence in evil would be undeniable. A biblical God for whom suffering is purifying, a God as present in a whirlwind as a whisper, a God that saves the world and a God who condemns it. The evershifting whimsy of the God of the Bible would still be frustrating, still horrifying, but at least the chaos would be explained in context of Christianity. At the pleasure of the Lord, for he is your creator. Maybe you would not want to worship such a God, but at least that kind of a God - a God for whom sin and punishment are a part of his all-powerful plan - could be believed. And an evil side to a god hasn't stopped some other religious people from worshiping their deity.
As it is, the description of a benevolent God who is apparently thwarted in his creation by sin that is apparently only the fault of man ... that does not support the theology of God omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. And the next person who says evil is the absence of God is going to get a proverbial mace in his ass. Because under the assumption that god is omniscient, there is nowhere that God is not. This also supports the problem of evil as contrary to God's will and nature.
The disturbing problem of faith and wisdom will be addressed in a future post, but I have talked about it a little before.
So that's where I am right now. The more I seek answers to get me back into Christianity, the farther away I get. I'm very conscious that the only reason I seek God is because hell frightens me. And possibly worse, a crippling fear of being wrong.
By nature, I am a truth-seeker. I want answers, and when I can't find them, my quest can reach a level of manic obsessiveness that is probably not healthy. So even if I didn't end up believing in the answers I got, I would be glad for the answers. But they seem nowhere to be found. Too often I come across the great biblical cop-out: "God is so much bigger than you with your puny mind. Hie is God, and who are you to question him?" I say biblical because it is the answer to many of my questions about the nature of the world and God in the book of Job. All I can say in response is that the answer is insufficient. If God managed to divinely inspire so many writings in human tongues, why was he incapable of simplifying these answer into human terms? Instead, he comes to Job in a whirlwind to impress, then says that he is the creator and who are we to ask?
We are humans - beautifully inquisitive, much like many of our mammalian brethren. We ask questions of the world around us. Much blood and ink has been shed in the search for answers, and not just from me. God seemed perfectly comfortable providing answers for so much else. His answer in Job seems small when smashed in the middle of a giant book full of words to attempt to answer human questioning. If the answer in Job had ever been enough, libraries would be empty, and Jesus would not have needed to ever speak. If I (among so many others) have the mental capacity for the question, God should have the power to answer.
This pursuit for answers is a time-honored and even biblical endeavor. It is so much a part of me that I probably have an amusing look on my face when someone tells me that they don't or never have these questions, nor do they need the answers. I will not have this taken from me, nor my anger and frustration made small.