Monthly Archives: December 2007

Proud of our youth

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I travelled into Colchester by bus today, to do some Christmas shopping and to watch the film I’ve just reviewed. I got to the bus station at about 7.50pm and settled down to the half hour wait for a bus to take me home. Now I don’t often use the bus, but each time I use it something interesting happens. This time more than most.

I started reading a book, but after a while, a man came over to the shelter who was clearly very much worse for drink. He immediately started accosting me and the handful of people waiting with hostile and abusive language – he even called me an intellectual impostor for reading! (Shock, horror – perhaps alcohol gave him second sight…). However, I managed to have the beginnings of a more civilised conversation with him and he wandered off to the far end of the shelter. Unfortunately he then started haranguing some of the others, including two smallish children (aged about 15), one of whom gave him a bit of lip back – very effectively, but possibly very foolishly. I managed to distract his attention back towards me, in the course of which – because he was banging on about being a soldier – I told him that I was a padre. Which information meant nothing to him and he soon confessed to not being a soldier. But then, realising what I did for a living, he proceeded to harangue me even more aggressively for being a paedophile – for that is what the priesthood is now best known for – and he carried on shouting directly in my face (as in literally one inch or so from mine – I was mostly sitting down) and threatening all sorts of dire physical assaults upon me, giving demonstrations by striking the wall of the shelter and so on.

Now why do I call this post ‘proud of our youth’. Mainly because the two other people there, both quite young though older than the small kids, displayed very cool heads, showed concern and compassion in looking after the little ones, and were very sensible and useful in steering the nutter away from the scene of conflict and generally calming things down.

This could have been a story about how rotten our society is. Yet what has most imprinted itself on my mind is how good all these kids were. Very encouraging. Although it’ll now take me quite some time to get to sleep as the adrenaline is still in my system!

American Gangster

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I thought this was really good – and I’m sure it will stand the test of time – but ultimately there was something missing; perhaps any sense of moral struggle within the main protagonists, no progression or redemption. But it was a good tale well told. Satisfying, if not surprising. Four out of five.

To what are humanists accountable?

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I wanted to pick this element out from Ian’s comments, where he said: “To what is a humanist accountable ? … to humanity what else … and rest of the living cosmos. (which would merge with your view, on Pantheistic territory). The balance of freedoms (from) with responsibilities (to).”

Firstly – and for the record(!) – I’m not a pantheist!!! Once upon a time I might have accepted the label ‘panentheist’ but these days I’m more sceptical of all those metaphysical systems and am content with ‘Christian’.

However, the key question I want to pursue is: what does it mean to say that a humanist is accountable to humanity? Is that a democratically defined good? Or is there some other sort of value at stake here? If so, how is it pursued, how are conflicts reconciled, how is it explicated and communicated? In other words, what is the distinctive way in which a humanist cultivates the virtue of “humanity” in themselves and in their friends and neighbours? All these things are front and centre in a religious tradition, but seem absent from humanist (and atheist) discourse, on the whole. Humanism seems to be drawing on the bank balance built up by religious believers without paying anything back – which is why our society is now morally bankrupt and heading rapidly down the toilet.

Sorry for the rant, but I’m really interested in pursuing this aspect.

A response to Davidov on Godtalk

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Click full post for text.

My responses in italics.

Your post leaves me with two fundamental questions. First, the ideas you refer to would by some be called moral sense, sense of purpose and reflection respectively. What is a humanist missing if they have the same feelings but ascribe a different source? If they are not missing something (like a God which exists separately from our attitudes to him) isn’t religion just a choice rooted only in the subject’s personal views?

I think there is a lot of overlap. Not surprising as I also believe that all humanity is made in the image of God. Yet I would say that a religious perspective completes that which is only partial in a humanist perspective. In particular I think that what a religious perspective brings is a sense of the coherence and purpose that exists outside of the preferences of the individual. You could say: a religious perspective includes an accountability that is (usually) absent from a humanist perspective (for to what would a humanist be accountable?).

Secondly, where does this conception of God leave the basic understanding of Christianity common in our society?

I don’t have a dog in that race. That is, it is manifestly clear to me that “the basic understanding of Christianity common in our society” is mistaken.

Did God “create” the world?

Yes.

Can prayers be answered by God changing things?

I’m still thinking this one through, but I’m more minded to say yes than no.

Has any miracle, including those in the Bible, ever happened?

Short answer is yes, but I think your using a particular understanding of miracle here. Have you ever read this post?

What does life after death mean?

Something other than eternal life, usually.

Is there some external entity which forgives our sins if we repent?

This sounds like you’re asking if God is a being.

In what way was Christ more than a prophet?

He was raised from the dead.

If none of this follows the traditional path (God created and cares about the world and sent Christ to redeem us from sin) what plans does the Church have to tell people that they can safely put these ideas to one side?

I’m wholly in favour of the traditional path.

Can I add a third? Isn’t this conception of God reactive to the success of science since the Renaissance?

Not at all. Science isn’t that important; or, to put that differently, science is itself dependent upon theological assumptions.

Most highly educated theologians, who can’t just be dismissed, seem to have had very simple ideas of God until quite recently.

Sorry, that’s rubbish. Unless you’re using ‘simple’ in a technical sense, in which it’s a truism.

You say that atheists (not me btw) want the concept of God to be ridiculous. Aren’t they just challenging the concept of God common until science cast doubt on it?

If a 15 year old cannot adequately defend the concept of evolution against criticisms from well-informed creationists, does this make evolution false? Very little atheism that I am aware of takes theology seriously; someone like Dawkins is much happier with a summary dismissal. See the quote from Denys Turner here.

To take two C16th examples – can it be that this conception of God was really the one for which Cranmer, Lattimer and Ridley were burnt to death when they could so easily have obtained a pardon?

The Reformation martyrs weren’t put to death for their conception of God. At least I don’t think they were. It was much more to do with how Christianity was to be pursued relative to the authority of the central institutions.

What sort of oddball, in the face of such a subtle and difficult concept of God, could not accept an alternative view or that there would be no detriment for bending with the breeze? What sort of psycho would pass the sentence when hanging was an option for non-religious crimes?

Some truths are worth dying for; in other words, sometimes it is more life-giving to be killed for living IN the truth than to go on living apart from the truth.

A few more (1) Those who debated Henry VIII’s first divorce in the context of Leviticus said they thought his breach of the law explained why he had no sons. The Pope was petitioned for divorce. Did those petitioning him and the Pope know that the premise was false

Pass(!)

(2) Didn’t those who denounced Galileo do so because they believed the cosmology in the Bible was accurate.

See my posts here and here.

(3) The last execution for heresy in Britain was 1697. Surely those accusing and trying him believed that his critcism of eg miracles was in fact wrong. Surely they themselves believed in miracles.

You know more about this case than I do.

Two more recent examples – in the late C19 a debate was arranged in Oxford between a Darwinist and a … Bishop. The Church was seen as the relevant other side of the debate. The Bishop propounded the Biblical view of creation and poured scorn on the idea that he was related to a monkey. This is very recent and the Bishop was not an idiot. (A woman cried out in protest and fainted when the Darwinist told the Bishop to his face that he was indeed related to a monkey – what a very C19th scene).

To my mind both sides of this debate had become locked into a non-orthodox world view.

At a similar time another Bishop calculated that the world was c.7,000 years old based on Bible passages. This implies that he believed the Bible set out facts about creation which would withstand rational analysis.

Archbishop Ussher. See my comment immediately above – it’s an extremely late development, and this IS a reaction to Renaissance science.

Here is a challenge. Can you name a Bishop in the C of E or Catholic Church who said, even in private papers, before 1900, that no miracles happened or the Virgin Birth was a metaphor?

Well… I’m not saying that no miracles happen; I’m saying (in effect) that the understanding of miracles common today, and shaped by scientific philosophy, is misleading and non-Scriptural. The straight answer to your question would probably be ‘one of the 18th century deists’ but no name springs to mind.

Very happy to pursue this further, though as I write this I realise I’ve written quite a lot about this elsewhere.

What do I mean when I talk about God?

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Click ‘full post’ for text.

First, possibly my all-time favourite Wittgenstein quotation:

‘I should like to say that … the words you utter or what you think as you utter them are not what matters, so much as the difference they make at various points in your life. How do I know that two people mean the same when each says he believes in God? And just the same goes for belief in the Trinity. A theology which insists on the use of *certain particular* words and phrases, and outlaws others, does not make anything clearer… It gesticulates with words, as one might say, because it wants to say something and does not know how to say it. Practice gives the words their sense’. (From ‘Culture and Value’, in remarks dated 1950. The passage as a whole I would like read at my funeral)

So what do I mean when I talk about ‘God’? It’s a troublesome word. It’s normally (that is, normally in non-Christian circles, and even in some that are Christian) understood to refer to a being, of supernatural origin, who acts and intervenes in the world. The God I believe in is not a being – because he is not a anything. God is not the member of a class – any class. So is the word ‘God’ a metaphor? Of course. We cannot capture God in our language; all attempts ultimately fail; and yet the attempt is edifying and enlarging. It is like climbing a ladder. In order to climb, one must first place all one’s weight upon a particular step, but to progress, one must abandon it completely.

I have found it very difficult to get atheists to understand that point. That could be because they have much invested in the concept of God remaining ridiculous.

So what do I mean when I talk about ‘God’? Several things, in no particular order other than the order I’ve thought of them.

Firstly I have a sense – I guess most people have a sense – of when I have started down a wrong path; or, conversely, when I am pursuing a right path. This could be compared to the physical sense of balance; or, an image I’ve used elsewhere, it is like the ’tilt’ mechanism on a pinball machine. I will sometimes use the word God to refer to that which is calling me into balance, or warning me against being off balance.

Related to this is the sense of vocation, that is, that I am on a path with a particular destination, and that I am being led along this path from moment to moment. I will talk about God in this context, as that which is illuminating my next steps – a lantern to my feet and a light upon my path. In this sense God is a lure – an active and intentional agent drawing me forwards.

This broadens out into something about intimacy and concern. The creativity and desire which is drawing me forward is personal; that is, I relate to it as I would to a person. I don’t normally have a conversation – not in the sense that I would have a conversation with another human being – but that I am communicated with is undeniable. Indeed, it’s routine, it’s a large part of my prayer life, listening to what God might have to say to me.

Sometimes I have visions. I distinguish these from daydreams and the routine permutations of my imagination by the sense of seriousness and conviction with which they seize me (not all are equally serious). When this happens I take these to be particular and specific messages from God.

Another aspect to this is to do with truth. There was an occasion recently when I realised that I was not speaking the truth (that is, I was not persuaded of something that I was arguing for). I was not IN the truth. When I reflect on a situation like this then the distinction between one set of attitudes, beliefs and propositions and another set is very strong, and one set will seem much more attractive and luminous. I will use the word God to talk about the difference between them. Most frequently this will involve some sort of personal interrogation about motives, and the process of illumination will often disinter some sort of personal hurt or bad habit or vice which is preventing me from living in, and listening to, the truth. In other words, discerning the truth is a spiritual task, and this is one of the most important ways in which God makes himself clear to me. Crucially, all that I refer to when I talk about God is independent of my own conscious will and desiring.

Finally, I would want to talk about God in the external world, as an agent in the world. God is not an agent like other agents, however; not a cause alongside other causes. Rather, God is the precondition for all things that are held in being. When I see God at work in the world what I am really saying is that here my eyesight has been clarified; I’m not saying anything all that specific about God. God does not specially ‘intervene’, for God is always present. What changes is in me.

Now, to gather some of these strands together, I would want to talk about that which is intimately involved in my life leading me forward into truth and life and integrity and with which I can communicate in a personal way. That’s what I mean when I talk about God. Yet there is one thing more. In the same way that as you walk into the light it becomes more possible to see, so too as I have slowly walked into the light of God, I have been more able – ever so slowly – to discern what God looks like. And He looks like this:

Come Holy Spirit (David Pytches)

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I came across this in the church library the other day, and as I am starting to pursue an exploration of charismatic thinking and practice, it seemed remarkably heaven sent. I found it to be a very interesting book, and a reassuring one, although a little dated in some ways (it was written in 1985). David Pytches is one of the founding figures of Charismatic Spirituality in the UK, being particularly involved in New Wine. I’m attending a New Wine conference next April in Harrogate, which should be illuminating.

Things I liked about it: first and foremost, the theological grounding for expecting ‘signs and wonders’ as a normal and routine part of apostolic ministry. I’m persuaded of this, and I suspect this is the most important thing I need to digest. I also liked the way in which the exercise of a healing ministry (for example) was separated off from any sense of controlling the outcome or feeding the ego of the minister (one of the things that had always steered me away from charismatic spirituality).

There were two things I didn’t like. The first was a sense of spiritual confinement, in that prophecy, for example, is a much larger and more dynamic gifting than is expressed in Paul’s letters – but Paul’s letters seemed to set the parameters for the exercise of that gift. This seemed sub-biblical; bizarrely, I would want to enlarge the active role of God beyond what was argued for here. The other element which seemed wrong was the lumping together of other faiths with a general sense of the demonic. I am not persuaded that, for example, the practice of yoga is Satanic; indeed I would argue quite strenuously for the opposite – that this sort of opposition to yoga is Satanic, in that it is embedded in skandalon and the taking of offence.

Yet those criticisms are not central to the book. I’d recommend it as a first step – it has certainly helped me.