The Objectification of God

(Originally published by me HERE.)

"I'm struggling with my faith."

"The experience increased my faith."

"My faith gets me through the day."

Have you ever heard or said anything like the above sentences? Here's my problem with them: they mean almost nothing. Why? Because this way of speaking makes faith into an abstract concept. The word can be applied to anyone or anything. It is, at least, one step removed from the object of that faith.

I don't like talking about faith as if it is a thing in and of itself. To talk about our faith makes us sound very spiritual, but our faith is only so good as the object or person in which it is placed. If I have faith in a chair to hold me up when I sit in it, my faith means nothing if someone came along before I got there and removed all the screws. If I have faith in God, my faith is only so good as my relationship with Him as a Being.

That last sentence is very important. Read it again. My faith is only so good as my relationship with God as a BEING. It is essential that we recognize God as a BEING, as opposed to a BELIEF. Many of us good, well-meaning, "spiritual" Christians find the fact that God is an actual Being very inconvenient. That means He has a personality. He has opinions (that I may not agree with). He experiences emotions. He thinks about things differently than I do. He has His own goals and methods of accomplishing them. He works on His own timetable. (That last one is a big problem for me, actually!)

It's much easier to think of Him as a belief and just try to fit that belief into our world and our plans as best we can. That way, I can go to church and "fellowship" and try to be good and even pray once in a while, but I don't really have to rearrange my entire life to fit with Someone else's agenda. I don't have to sacrifice my lifestyle (as long as it's "good enough" to sooth my conscience) to step out of my comfort zone into the unknown realm of relying on a Being I can't see. I don't have to study the Word in it's minute details to learn how to hear His voice in my life and then wait and listen for Him to speak to me.

Adding god to my life is so much easier and less messy than aligning myself to God.

But, do I really need another belief? I have lots of them. I believe dark chocolate is better than milk chocolate. I believe it's scary to drive on icy roads. I believe Nietzsche would have made a very good Satanist. I believe my husband would get upset if I went out and bought a car without his knowledge. I believe my dog is prettier than my neighbor's dog. (Tru dat.)

Do I really need one more belief? Isn't it better to have a relationship?
Think of it this way. What would you prefer--to believe that you have a spouse who loves you or to actually have a spouse who loves you?

I want the spouse. I want the love. I want the messy. I want the challenge and the disagreements and the making up. I want the sounding board for my insane, crazy emotions and my deep, profound thoughts about the meaning of life. I want the discovery of the depth of who he is--weird or not. I want the teasing and the wrestling and the love making and the rolling of the eyes. I want it all. I don't want just a belief in him, I want HIM.

Without Him, I'm stuck with just...

me.

The difference I'm talking about is a difference in the kind of knowledge we have a right to claim. It's the difference between propositional knowledge ("I know that God exists.") and interpersonal knowledge ("I know God.")

Knowing a fact is propositional knowledge and it's fine, for what it is, but it's very impersonal. It's no more important than knowing the moon exists. OK. Got it, but what does that really matter for my day-to-day?

Knowing a person is interpersonal knowledge (IPK) and it is a vastly different experience than knowing a fact. It's the difference between knowing Shaquille O'Neal exists and knowing Shaquille O'Neal. Which is more dynamic? More life-changing? More involved? More intrusive into our world?

So, when we think of using the word "faith," perhaps we should instead use the Name of the Person---the BEING--we really mean: Jesus Christ.

"I'm really struggling in my relationship with Jesus Christ."

"The experience with Jesus increased my dependence on Him."

"Jesus Christ gets me through the day."

Suddenly, these statements start to make sense. I want to hear more. I want a glimpse inside a relationship that is dynamic and real. I want to know this Person, too.

Closing thought:
The word "faith" isn't the only word we use to objectify God. Consider the words/terms: "moral right," "religion," "justice," "hope," etc. There are many, many ways we push God away through the way we conceive of Him and substitute abstract words for Him. When we think of Him as a belief, our word choices betray us. When know Him as a Being, our word choices reflect that relationship. This week, listen to the way people talk about God. Is He a belief or a Being to them? How about to you?

On "Losing Your Faith"

People keep talking about "losing their faith", as if faith is a thing that can be manipulated or set down or given away. I don't think of faith that way. I don't think of knowing God that way, if by "faith" we mean "knowing God."

Try thinking of it this way: Knowledge comes in many forms. One key form is called propositional knowledge. This is the knowing of facts. It's called propositional knowledge because we can state this knowledge in the form of a proposition. For example: "God exists" is a proposition. It is either true or false. It's a fact that can be known or not known.

However, when we talk about faith in God, we're not talking about propositional knowledge. We're talking about another kind of knowledge altogether. This kind of knowledge is called "Interpersonal Knowledge." It's the kind of knowledge that pertains to the knowing of a person, not a fact. For example, "I know my Mom." Obviously, knowing my mom is not the same thing as knowing facts about my mom. I can know lots of facts about Abraham Lincoln, but not know Abraham Lincoln. So, interpersonal knowledge is a very different thing. It comes from experiencing an interaction with another consciousness. So, if God is a Person--an actual Being with a consciousness of His own, then we can only get to know Him (or have faith in Him) through interactions with Him as a Being, not as if He is just a fact.

So, for those who claim to have "lost their faith," maybe this misunderstanding is why all the lessons we learned in church and through reading the Bible, etc., seem so flat now. None of them can account for faith in God. None of them can equal the sum total of Who God is. None of them can provide me with a relationship with a Being, only a set of flat, tasteless, colorless beliefs. What we'remissing is really recognizing that knowing God is more than memorizing a list of facts we about Him, just as my mom is more than memorizing a bunch of stuff about her. Knowing God requires recognizing He's a real Being, communicating with Him (reading His love letter to me--the Bible and praying and listening), and letting Him decide in what way He will be involved in my life. It doesn't come from trying to force churchiness into my life as a prop to help me make good choices as I struggle on my own in the world. He has His own ways of doing things and we can't force it anymore than I can force my mom to do what I want. I have to get to know her (and God) for who they are and, partially at least, on their terms.

"A Good God Wouldn't... (Fill in the Blank)."

In 1860, Charles Darwin wrote a letter to Asa Gray in which he described one of his motivations for rejecting belief in God. He wrote:

"With respect to the theological view of the question; this is always painful to me.— I am bewildered.— I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I sh^d wish to do, evidence of design & beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice (emphasis added)."

Two years ago, I attended a creation talk (a series of talks, really) given by a Seventh Day Adventist pastor. The research and argumentation was exceedingly well researched and delivered, I thought, and presented a wealth of evidence for the existence and involvement of a good, loving Creator. However, on the last evening of the series, the pastor said this (which I'm paraphrasing as best I can from memory):

"I want to suggest that when people die and go to Hell, that they are not completely destroyed and neither do they stay there, suffering horribly, for an eternity. Now, bear with me as I explain why I think this is: When I read the Bible, I find a God who would do anything to rescue His children--us--even to the point of dying on the cross for us. Furthermore, the Bible says that when we get to heaven, that ever tear will be wiped away. But, could you be happy in heaven if you knew your husband or sister or child was suffering in Hell? No. So, I believe that people who die without knowing Christ go to Hell and suffer for a time, but are then destroyed--burned up, so to speak. People do not suffer for an eternity in Hell. A good God wouldn't let that happen (emphasis added)."
FYI, there was no mention of the many, many passages in the Bible that clearly describe an eternity of suffering in Hell for those that do not accept Jesus Christ's payment for their sin.

But, the maligning of the Word aside, the dangerous thinking I'm pointing to here is revealed whenever we start a sentence with: "A good God would..." or "A good God wouldn't...."

This kind of statement requires that we base our understanding of the world on a complete reversal of our moral position with God's moral position. It sets me up as a judge over God. It implicitly claims that I am of a higher moral ilk than God is, that I have the right to judge His behavior or motivations, and (in a bizarre twist) that the truth of His pronouncements and, indeed, His very existence is dependent on my verdict.

Our first mistake is to conceive of God as a moral Being. No. He's the Standard. He doesn't have to follow the rules, He is the Rule. His very character is the standard. He is completely sovereign. There is no free-floating "morality" that exists independently of Him. And, even if there were, what makes us think we would have access to it?

Our second mistake is to assume we, of our own accord, have anything good to contribute to the conversation. We are irreparably flawed, in and of ourselves. Our insight is limited, our judgment is poor, our behavior atrocious. So, where do we think this nebulous standard of "good" comes from, if not from God? Certainly, it doesn't come from us. And, yet, we presume to put God on trial and set ourselves up as His judge?

Martyrdom and the Truth

I was recently asked, “Because people were willing to die for their belief, whether it was in a person or a way of life or whatever it was, does that automatically make it true?”

This is a very interesting question. I know there have been lots of martyrs of varying cultural and religious backgrounds who have died for different reasons. In looking through some of them (e.g. Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, Socrates, Martin Luther King, Jr., etc.), I find myself wondering, “Is the actual belief they died for, regardless of our other differences, something I would disagree with today?” And, honestly, I think the answer is no.

The fact is, healthy, rational people don’t give up their lives for a belief that, for them at least, is in question. The truth of that belief matters a great deal and the stakes for denying the truth of that belief and seen as so high that death is better than disbelief. The most famous martyrs in history all died for something that, to me at least, has the ring of truth.

Now, obviously, their contemporaries didn’t believe similarly—otherwise, there would’ve been no reason to martyr oneself for it. But, their deaths did make others sit up and take notice. Their deaths also got the attention of more powerful, thoughtful, truth-seeking folks who spread the message further.

So, I guess the answer to this question is: No, martyring oneself for a belief doesn’t make it true. But, it’s certainly a good way to get people to give it another look. And, martyrdom has done a great deal to massively alter our global philosophies and humanitarian ideals.

Socrates, Death Sentences, and Living Well

Socrates sits in prison. He has been convicted of corrupting the youth, denying the accepted gods, and spreading lies about the gods (or making up false gods--whichever is worse.) His sentence? Death. He will be forced to drink poison--a hemlock cocktail of sorts. Now he sits waiting for the morning of his coming demise, but is allowed a visitor--a friend named Crito.  Crito has come for one purpose--to convince Socrates to escape.

Crito and Socrates both know that Socrates's imprisonment and sentence is unjust. Basically, he's being legally murdered for little more than being a nuisance. He has annoyed some powerful people by making them look stupid (because they couldn't answer his questions and couldn't get him to stop asking annoying questions) and now they are having their revenge. Socrates will die so they can save face.

But Crito has it all worked out. He has the money to bribe some guards and he's secured a place outside the city where Socrates can live out the rest of his days in peace--doing what he does best--sitting around and philosophizing with anyone who will listen. It's the perfect arrangement.

It's just that Socrates doesn't think so. He refuses to go.

Crito argues with Socrates, complaining that if Socrates dies, Crito would lose a friend and people will think that he didn't act rightly by Socrates. People will think he wasn't a good friend and valued money more than Socrates's life.

Socrates says (and I'm paraphrasing), "Who cares what the majority think?"

Crito responds. "They're powerful."

"No they aren't," replies Socrates. "They don't have true power. True power is in the ability to take away or give wisdom. We should only care about the opinions of the one person who understands what justice is. If we listen to the majority, who don't understand it, we'll hurt that part of ourselves that is affected by the just."

Seeing he's getting nowhere, Crito moves on to his second argument (I'm still paraphrasing). "What you're doing, Socrates, is unjust. You're throwing your life away when there's a way out. You're a quitter, and you're abandoning the students you worked so hard to train. Furthermore, you're taking the easy way out and that shows cowardice."

Socrates asks, "Should we ever act unjustly?"

Crito responds with the obvious answer, "No."

"What if we're being wronged?"

"No." And they agree that it's always better to be the recipient of injustice than the giver.

Socrates asks, "What's to say that the system that set up these laws are wise or just? Who's to say? But, regardless, I have agreed to live in this society under these laws and have knowingly accepted their judgment. So, were I to escape now, I'd be breaking just agreements with the laws and with the city. I would be acting impiously, because the gods love the city more than man. I have agreed to the laws in deed by staying, not to mention that I already rejected the offer of exile at the trial and chose death instead. And to your last point, I'd be undermining everything I've lived by and taught others. I would make myself a hypocrite."

Conclusion? Critus's plan is unjust.

But here's the best part of this entire dialogue (which I paraphrased and greatly shortened for you here). Socrates says something very profound that I think everyone should hear and add to their worldview.

He says, "The most important thing isn't living, but living well."
I think this is a good place to start this blog, because I believe we are the kinds of beings who can only thrive within healthy relationships with God, one another, and our world. The way, then, to "live well" is to learn what kinds of beings we are, what healthy relationships look like, and make choices that allow us to achieve the fullness of what it is to be human. This is true wisdom. And philosophy, is the "love of wisdom."