The Logic of Faith

by A.J. Grunthaler

 

In the 21st century, it seems as though the belief in a supreme being is destined to become a quaint and slightly silly artifact of a bygone age. In an age where technology and science have become so advanced, we think that we can simply do away with antiquated ideas like God and religion, because it seems as though we now have all the answers to life’s most perplexing questions—who we are, where we come from, and where we are ultimately going. But the more advanced we become as a species, the more we realize that the ultimate answers to our deepest questions are as elusive as ever.

What we’ve discovered is that it is easy to kill off God. It’s much more difficult, I’m afraid, to replace the idea of God with some other concept that can provide us with the kind of ultimate meaning and value that all human beings desire. In a world devoid of a Supreme Being, we are simply one species among the many that inhabit this planet of ours (our brains, after all, may be larger than that of a chimpanzee or baboon, but not by all that much). And without God, our lives become little more than the same kind of struggle for brute survival that we witness among all other life forms in the animal world. In such a world, to dominate others for ones own gain and to maximize ones own pleasure and wealth, even at the cost of the happiness and well-being of others, becomes the sole point of human existence. Peace, cooperation, and the pursuit of justice are merely values promoted by the weak and foolish—those who lack the fortitude, the courage, or the intelligence to triumph over their fellow human beings.

In a God-emptied world, our role models really should be those who are able to put aside antiquated notions about morality that stem from religious ideas and do what is necessary to insure their own long-term prosperity—successful gangsters, wily dictators, corrupt politicians, and dishonest businessmen. These are individuals who understand (to use the language of Dostoyevsky) that, if God is dead, then anything is permitted. In fact, if there is no God, then it makes no sense at all to be concerned with others, since our fellow human beings are nothing more than competitors for the increasingly dwindling resources that make life on planet Earth worth living. A gangster or dictator gets this fact completely; a naïve and foolish proponent of justice and morality, not at all. In the end, the gangster or dictator triumphs and the man or woman of faith ends up in the garbage bin of human history.

Gangster-logic, as I said, makes perfect sense in the God-emptied world. But I think that it’s somewhat premature of us to announce the death of God. Even in the 21st century, there are some fairly good reasons to believe that God exists. In the 14th century, the great Dominican philosopher Thomas Aquinas came up with five ways to prove the existence of God, and I think that these ways hold up as well today as they did in the Middle Ages. Aquinas’ “proofs” for God’s existence basically hinge on the idea that nothing comes from nothing. If there’s no first cause of existence, then there’s no reason for contingent beings like ourselves to be here at all. In a universe of infinite possibilities, the fact that self-conscious, rational beings like ourselves would come into existence purely by chance is an extremely unlikely possibility at best. We have absolutely no evidence, after all, that other intelligent forms of life exist anywhere else in the universe. So the very fact that we exist at all, as Thomas Aquinas understood, seems to indicate the existence of some Higher Being that is the first cause of our existence.

While I think that Aquinas’ arguments make a good case for the existence of a First Cause that is itself uncaused or a Prime Mover that is unmovable, I think that it takes a second leap of faith to infer that this being is the God we read about in the Old and New Testaments—one that has entered human history and cares deeply about our collective and personal destinies. After all, a Supreme Being could be the god of the Deists—one who creates the universe and everything in it and then steps out of the picture completely.

That the First Cause is also the God who loves humanity as a father loves his children—with a constant, abiding, and unassailable love—must remain a matter of faith for most human beings. But our faith in this regard can be bolstered by the long line of saints and mystics in all the great religious traditions who have been blessed with the beatific vision and who have encountered God as Pure Love and Supreme Goodness. And the bliss, joy, and happiness that these great spiritual exemplars have experienced as a result of their God-encounters should be a consolation for the rest of us who strive to achieve what those men and women have achieved, despite having to live out our lives in a world that keeps telling us that God is dead and faith is for fools.

Logic tells us that God exists; faith assures us that He loves us and has a plan for our lives. This is the reason why it makes more sense to strive be more like Mother Teresa than like Donald Trump. If the First Cause of our being is also the God who views us as his beloved children and who has a plan for our salvation, we defy Him and His plan at our own peril. Such defiance means that we have missed the whole point of our human lives. What could be more tragic than that?

And this is precisely why gangster logic is really not very logical at all. In the end, the logic of faith remains the best way to ensure happiness and peace in this life as well as in the next.

 

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A.J. Grunthaler is a formers classics instructor and the  author of The Art of Persuasion (SophiaOmnis Press, 2012).

The Cult of the Irrational

Hundred of years ago in Europe, during that period which we refer to as the Enlightenment, human beings began to replace many of their former superstitious beliefs with ideas that were the product of some of the most exquisite uses of human reason ever attempted by man. Our Founding Fathers were products of the Enlightenment and they clearly believed that the nation they were creating was grounded in the principles of natural reason (Jefferson’s self-evident truths).

The Founding Fathers would probably be dismayed to learn that, well over 200 years after this nation was established, so many of its citizens—and even a good number of its elected officials—would have mindsets that seemed much better suited for the Middle Ages than the 21st century.

For example, the clear scientific consensus on climate change—the view held by well over 99% of reputable climatologists—is that our planet is warming, that this warming trend is a consequence of the amount of carbon that human beings are spewing into the atmosphere, and that, unless we cap carbon emissions in some significant way (and how to do this is subject to legitimate dispute), the consequences for our future generations will be dire. Those are the scientific facts, plain and simple. And yet, despite all the hard evidence we have about climate change, a significant number of Americans either believe that the planet is not really warming at all, or, if it is, this has nothing to do with human behavior. One Republican senator, James Inhofe, went so far as to call climate change “the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people.” And he’s the former chairman of the Senate Committee on the Environment, no less!

We’ve also know for quite a long time that our planet is billions of years old, that human beings as a species only evolved from lower forms of primates about 200,000 years ago, and that the dinosaurs were long gone before we came into the picture. However, a significant number of Americans—almost all evangelical Christians and the majority of Republicans—believe that the world was created literally in seven days and that human beings were placed on this planet by God on the seventh day. In order to explain the messy problem of dinosaur fossils that seem to predate human existence by millions of years, creationists have argued that humans and dinosaurs actually co-existed on the planet. There’s even a creationist theme park in Kentucky that shows children in primitive garb happily riding on the backs of friendly dinosaurs. If you think that these views are held only by the most ignorant Americans, guess again. Marco Rubio, who is very likely to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2016, recently responded when asked how old he thought the earth was, “Whether the earth was created in seven days, or seven actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to actually answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.” Keep in mind that there is a very good chance that this individual could be the next President of the United States of America!

There have always been irrational people in American society, but in the Age of Obama, they seem to be climbing out of the woodwork. From the very beginning of Obama’s presidency, there were people (again a majority of Republicans and evangelical Christians) who passionately believed he was a Muslim (he never was), a socialist (not even close) and that he was not really a U.S. citizen (even after the State of Hawaii produced his U.S. birth certificate).  

For Americans like these, reason, logic, and evidence don’t matter at all in terms of their beliefs. They are convinced instead by the proclamations of authority figures (religious leaders or political pundits like Rush Limbaugh), by the literal teachings of their sacred texts (the Bible, of course), and by their own dread of living in a world inhabited by people whose skin is a darker shade than their own or whose worldviews aren’t shaped by traditional Christian faith. It’s that basic underlying fear of a world in change that has these Americans clinging for dear life to their antiquated religious beliefs and to the Republican Party, which has for all practical purposes become the home for those who belong to the cult of extreme irrationality.

We can, of course, laugh at the silly, superstitious beliefs of know-nothing Americans, and dismiss these views as being the products of defective minds. But the men and women who hold such views now effectively control one of the two major political parties in the United States—a party, which very soon could once again be in charge of the U.S. government—and have a strange-hold over the education of children and the teaching of “science” in many parts of the country. What is needed, then, is the same kind of intensive campaign on the part of those of us who embrace the wisdom of the Enlightenment as has been waged for years now by the forces of irrationality.  

Fortunately, those who are part of the cult of irrationality are a dying breed. They tend to be old, white, less educated than the mainstream population, and confined to those parts of the country like the Bible Belt, where ignorance and superstition are positively embraced (or at least tolerated). The very know-nothing attitudes that are indicative of membership in the cult of irrationality also means that these individuals will be less likely to compete in an economy in which the possession of openness to new ideas, tolerance of differing viewpoints, and effective critical thinking ability will determine economic success in the information age.

But this doesn’t mean that we can’t weep for the children who, through no fault of their own, are being raised in families and communities in which the cult of irrationality dominates. It is precisely for these innocent children—many of whom will grow up wishing that they could ride on the backs of dinosaurs just like their ancestors did—that we need a concerted campaign to reclaim a primary role for reason in American society. The consequences, if we fail to do this, will be the existence of a permanent underclass of backwards Americans who cling to old-time religion and fixate on the joys of the next life, because the world and the pleasures it has to offer has ultimately passed them by.

The Original Occupy Wall Street Protester

I was sent this image by a friend, and initially it gave me quite a good chuckle. The more I thought about it, however, the more I began to realize how true the sentiments expressed in this poster actually are.

Can anyone doubt that our own Wall Street tycoons most certainly are the contemporary manifestation of Jesus' money changers? Profit at all costs; profit above all else; profit from the death, misery, and misfortunes of their fellow human beings....This is what moves and inspires our modern money changers. Profit is their supreme deity.

At least the money changers in Jesus' own time had some limits placed above their avarice. They were content to cheat their fellow Jews out of a few sheckels, not drive them to the brink of utter and complete destitution. When 15 million children in the United States (21% of all American children) live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level in a country where the richest citizens quibble about having to pay a percentage or two more in taxes, can there really be any doubt who Jesus would be driving out of his sight if he was around today?

I won't try to make the analogy between the God-man and the good men and women who are doing battle against forces of greed on Wall Street. That, after all, might strike some as being a tad sacrilegious.

You can draw your own analogies, if you so choose.

Christianity and Pacifism

In a previous post, I took issue with those conservative Christians who would turn Jesus into a free-market capitalist. I stand by my conviction that there is no way that you can read the Gospels and conclude that Jesus could possibly approve of the insatiable greed that drives our American capitalist system. If you can show me a single passage from scripture, for example, where Jesus says to his apostles anything like, "Go ye forth and rape and plunder the earth for your profit and mine," I'll stand corrected. But until then, please stop trying to turn Jesus into a first century Donald Trump. It just doesn't work.

And I also have a bit of advice for those Christians who think that they can combine their Christian faith with support for the military industrial complex, expansionist wars in the Middle East, and the torture and assassination of our political and military enemies: this doesn't work either.

You see, it is damn hard to reconcile your devotion for the guy who said things like "do not resist the evil-doer" and "if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn your other cheek to him as well" with the lust that you have to "nuke the whole f#$%ing Middle East" or bomb our enemies "back into the Stone Age."

I'm almost embarrassed to say this, because it should be self-evident to anyone who has ever picked up the Bible, but that fellow, Jesus of Nazareth, who you claim to worship, was even more of a bleeding-heart pacifist than he was a socialist. If you really took his teachings to heart, instead of being a cheerleader for more military spending, you'd be on the front lines of every anti-war protest; instead of squealing with delight whenever we assassinate a suspected terrorist, you'd be shouting from every street corner for justice, not revenge. People would hate you for the position you'd take on these issues, but they hated your savior too. That's part of what it means to be his disciple.

It's rather unfortunate that the person who seems to really understand what Jesus was all about is one of this country's most outspoken atheists--the comedian Bill Maher. You see, despite Maher's antipathy for any form of organized religion, at least he gets the fact that, if you really want to call yourself a follower of Jesus, you might want to actually try following his teachings on occasion. The big guy had nothing at all to say about abortion, gay marriage, or birth control, but he was very clear that, if you wanted to be his disciple, you had to "love your enemies" and "bless those who persecute you. "

It's for this very reason that I hesitate to call myself a Christian: because unlike those who have actually tried to live out the teachings of the Gospels (Tolstoy, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, Bishop Romero, Daniel Berrigan, etc), I have neither the courage nor the conviction to put aside all thoughts of revenge against my own enemies. This lust for revenge may make me perfectly human, but it seems to me that Jesus came precisely to teach us how to transcend our brute humanity and live a more divine life.

So, I really don't blame you at all if you hate the fact that your savior has commanded you to become a pacifist and redistribute your wealth (to be perfectly honest, I'm not ready yet to embrace these positions either). In fact, you may just want to consider finding a religion whose basic moral precepts are not quite as difficult to follow as those of Christianity.

Druidism, anyone?

Your Savior Was a Commie

In recent weeks, since my defense of the Occupy Wall Street movement and my pleas for greater income equality in the United States, I have been attacked by some conservatives as a socialist and a communist.

In response to these charges, I would say that, if by a "socialist" or a "communist" you mean that I believe that government has a positive role to play in assuring some level of basic equality among its citizens, then I stand accused. I've never denied that I think that a very well-regulated economy that protects the most vulnerable members of the society from being preyed upon by the rich and powerful is optimal. And, if you choose to label that particular view as "socialist," then I'm more than willing to embrace that title.

As a matter of fact, I derived my socialist leanings from a very good source: at one time I was inspired by a certain radical fellow by the name of Jesus of Nazareth, who would almost certainly be considered a "socialist" and a "communist" by many conservative Christians today. I would bet that, if Jesus was around right now, you'd be more likely to find him hanging out with the young protesters in Zuccotti Park then you would in the boardrooms of Wall Street. If you think otherwise, then you probably have not spent much time reading the gospels.

For example, try this little passage from Matthew 25:

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' "They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ "He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life”.

...or check out the following passage from James 2:1-7:

My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?

If sentiments like these aren't socialist, then, baby, I don't know what is!

Wall Street Christians and conservative evangelicals may have forgotten just how radical the animating spirit of Christianity is, but it hasn't been lost on the Pope. His latest encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate" would be slammed by reactionaries as "socialist" and "communist" if it wasn't being promulgated by the same guy who has spoken out so fiercely against abortion, birth control, the ordination of women, and gay rights.

When I reflect upon just how radical the teachings of Jesus, his early followers, and the Pope are on economic issues, it actually makes me feel quite ashamed of my own relative conservatism. I certainly would never think of asking people to give away all their wealth to the poor (Luke 1: 25-35) or claim that it is impossible to love God if you are working on Wall Street (Luke 16:9-13; Mark 10:17-31). Perhaps that's why I hesitate to call myself a Christian: if the passages I've cited above represent the standard for what it means to be a follower of Christ, then I could never in a million years be a real Christian.

I love my Ipod far too much.