At times, I run across people with frivolous and silly worries, the sorts which should have been resolved easily years ago and which, if they weren't presented with the sort of angst and heavy-dread usually reserved for high-school crushes, could be treated out of a children's catechism. It is fine for an adult who has never considered such questions to come to them innocently, but from some it is somewhat of a wonder that it never came up. What is the proper way to deal with such people? Is it the case that the root of their despair is not in the questions themselves?
For those needing something concrete, a few examples. A Bible college student who suddenly discovers the Gospels may not have been written by the people everybody says they're written by. All those damned nervous convert Orthodox types who plotz whenever they learn something or think about Protestants. A pious fellow who should know better wondering what good prayer is if God can't change His mind. A seminarian who encounters materialistic determinism for the first time and balks. A soldier who, three years into a war, wonders whether it's fine to shoot people. A pro-life advocate with an "unwanted pregnancy" considering an abortion. I suppose one must think about it sooner or later, but, you know, one would expect somebody in their position to have hit on it already. These things are trivial, stupid, small.
Perhaps I'm like Hume in his moral system, painting a grand picture but unable to articulate or care about the fine details that make all the difference. Perhaps I'm waving off, as trivialities, those things which truly do matter. I hope I'm not. The questions are important, and I'll be sure to disseminate my propaganda for future generations, but the difference is these people should know better by now. Perhaps if the tone in which the question were phrased were a little less anxious, I'd say less here. Simple education would do. I'm ignorant of several things, and if I'd never thought about prayer before, asking why one should pray at all if God doesn't change his mind is a fine question to ask. If I were quite knowledgeable, it would also be reasonable to ask in order to clarify what exactly one should say, why certain responses are wrong [ie, sounding like Job's comforters], how one could address the existential concerns of those sidelined by such doubts, etc.
And I don't care enough to conclude these thoughts, so I'll just say Discuss.
7 comments:
Hmm...
Well, there are some questions that should have come up by now. The pro-lifer with the unwanted pregnancy worries me. I determined long ago that no child should be aborted on my account whatever my views on civil liberties. The simplest way to ensure this would be to not have sex.
Now for a guy, this is relatively easy. For a woman, there is a greater chance of having sex involuntarily. So I could imagine that a raped pro-lifer might have an unexpected issue arise, but otherwise, if you're willing to promote something to others, you ought to do it as far as is logical.
Some people live in bubbles. Not everyone grows up hearing about "the author of Hebrews." Not everyone faces "materialistic determinism" etc. The way to cultivate a strong faith is not to expose someone to every heresy but to give him or her the tools to "test everything" and "hold fast to the good." So don't belittle someone for having so far avoided the horrors of the world but build them up with your familiarity with an issue.
oh, of course, i don't mean to belittle people who simply haven't run into something before. bubbles are fine to live in, one can't help it sometimes. but i tried to pick examples which highlight people who perhaps should have left the bubble, or, if not, have a low enough center of gravity not to be shaken when the bubble pops.
i left out the crucial "and loses faith" - think Bart Ehrman - in the Bible college one. if not losing, coming close. perhaps the Bible college example is not a great one, one can't expect too much from an 18-yr-old, especially the sort one finds at a Bible college in these last days.
anyways, one hears stories, and perhaps they're propaganda, but one hears stories.
of course, such a course of action is first step, but is there some disease behind the wavering? if so, what?
A few random things occur to me:
1. Since the Enlightenment, there has been an ongoing search for self-consistent philosophical systems. Everyone wants one. One of the interesting things I've learned in the last year is that fundamentalist Christianity is itself a child of the Enlightenment in this way. How else can one explain Five Point Calvinism?
2. The rise of liberal individualism (and population growth) has greatly increased the number of people who can ask questions, i.e., have sufficient leisure and liberty to engage theoretical and practical wisdom. The problem, as you really should know by now, is that asking questions can be existentially painful. If you live in a more communally oriented society, this isn't a problem. If you don't like the answers you find in such a society, you decide that you are unworthy of asking questions and yet still remain valuable to the community by accepting the answers of the community. A few questioners who can stand the heat drive all progress.
But if you live in an individualistic society, you seek to be more equal than anyone else. If one stopped being a questioner, the wisdom goes, one is merely a parasite of little value. No one wants to be a parasite. Thus, the Internet is filled with preachers without flocks, demogogues without followers, philosophers without disciples, and writers without readers. And thus also, there will be people frustrated when their individual reading of something does not cohere with a lot of other individual readings. We're schizophrenic, you see. We want to be both blindingly original and gain the approbation of others, yet the secret to the latter is to be unoriginal.
3. Then we hit postmodernism. There are no self-consistent systems. There are no readings that are really authoritative. The approbation of others is a power game that only comes from compulsion of some sort. So not only is the telos of liberal individualism improbable, it becomes completely untenable under these premises. In order to be successful, one needs to eliminate the liberty of others: the very liberty that allows them to be questioners.
This all might cause angst, I think.
But then again, it's 1 AM.
And I really think you mean "complete" rather than "self-consistent". Or perhaps something more like "self-contained".
See, I don't think that the problem is that such people uncover internal inconsistencies in what they believe. Rather, they believe that they have the key to understanding everything, that they've fit all of God's creation and essence into their heads. And when some idea or evidence that doesn't fit crashes in from outside, there's no room for it: either it must be denied completely, or the whole system has to be scrapped.
Whereas, for me, it just means that something has to be understood more deeply. I'm not so deluded to think that there's a perfect script for comprehending the universe, though there are many (better and worse) formulations of the one truth. No statement can fully express the relation between God's justice and His mercy, but some are false and some are true, and among the latter some express it more fully than others.
Know what I mean?
Caelius,
#1. very true.
#2. quite true. hence when net.atheists all sound so very much alike. or any other sort of convert of that stripe - and interesting things happen when they realize this is what happens. namely, more angst or perhaps #3.
#3. perhaps - while that is certain post-modern, i don't see many people moving into that in my everyday life. or perhaps i'm the one who wants to quash liberty? hmm.
Patrick,
Indeed. I think that is a very good point. The issue is, does one go into despair when something isn't consistent, or does one simply take it as a sign that deeper understanding is needed, a deeper understanding which may not be attainable right now but which is out there somewhere. And I suppose I'm annoyed by those nervous souls who despair too easily.
Patrick--
We can dither about terminology all you want, but you seem to have my point...
Mr. Thompson--
Concerning #3, I think we'll see more of the latter as liberal orthodoxies become increasingly untenable in the near future.
But then again, it could be, "Just my 'magination, running away from me. Just my 'magination, running away from me-eeee..."
Caelius,
Then again, you may very well be right, given my experience on that one dreadful site. The horror! The groupthink! The horror!
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