http://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnshore/2013/12/can-you-lead-a-fulfilling-life-without-god-and-a-few-other-key-questions-quickly-answered/
This is a very good article. "Amen", I say. Indeed religion is not about certainty, but trust. It is not about knowing but experiencing and believing. There is no faith without risk, remove risk and the awareness of risk then you remove faith. Where there is certainty, no trust is needed. Trust and certainty cannot coexist. It is only in risk that trust matters. But let go in trust, take that risk and make yourself radically vulnerable to the world and you can have a relationship with your Lord. With Jesus Christ Himself. Not as an imaginary friend or a dim memory, but as a living breathing reality.
Hat Tip: Jamie Nguyen
There is a Catch-22 here: let go in trust, but to let go I must trust in something . My belief has nothing to do with trust. God is increasingly the conclusion to an intellectual argument. If there is no Hell to avoid, then why bother with this? If my life is going OK, why not just leave well enough alone?
ReplyDeleteFrom your description of it I've never had love for God. Seems a bit late in the game to do it now. What would be the point? After reading MWM and discussing process/relational theology I would say God is even less of a person to me now than ever before. So what would be my motivation to take this on?
I don't see how it is a catch-22. It is epistemically circular but that is no problem. No belief-forming practice is void that kind of circularity. You cannot investigate the external world without assuming is existence nor trust inter-subjective agreement without it. You can learn more about this here: http://www.iep.utm.edu/ep-circ/#H1
ReplyDeleteNow, all I can say is you are the only person I've shared MSM and process theism that feels it makes God less of a person. Quite the opposite. The whole point is that reality, being itself is personal, that reality is a person that knows and cares about us so radically that it opens itself up to us. Whether you care about God and want to hurt or help God, that is the moral calculation at its center. I don't see how God could be more personal than that.
Alright I have to make some axiomatic assumptions. But throughout MWM it is pointed out that there is no way to actually know what is right. With that in mind, I may as well take on whatever happens to appeal to me and stop thinking much about it. It certainly seems that if life is that un-knowable and un-certain we can't be held accountable for anything we do. How can we be blamed if nothing can be known for certain?
ReplyDeleteI've read MWM four times now, I'm not getting God as person from it. God seems more like a force of nature; not some person about whom I could care at all. The P/R-theology God is far too weak to be of any interest to me. There is too much he can't do. I can utterly ignore that God with impunity. I won't cease to exist or if I do I won't be able to care; I may still be remembered, though that seems vague at best and there seems to be no Hell to fear either. So "Why bother?" becomes the primary question.
The MWM God seems to have no dignity, no majesty, no awe inspiring essence that would compel worship. May as well worship The Life Force, or Sex or something as worship the God I see in MWM.
Chances are I'm just so steeped in the Supernatural God with Heaven in one hand and Hell in the other that I can't conceive of anything else as existing or having any real meaning.
MWM left me more confused each time I've read it.
What is the purpose of worship? What makes God worthy of worship? In my view, we worship God to become conformed TO God, to become more Christlike. Any other view of worship seems vulnerable to the argument from autonomy (Ihttp://www.philosophyofreligion.info/arguments-for-atheism/the-argument-from-autonomy/)
ReplyDeleteIn the end the convictions expressed in MSM are just the outgrowth of belief that God is love. "The limitation of God is his goodness. He gains his depth of actuality by h is harmony of valuation. It is not true that God is in all respects infinite. If He were, He would evil as well as good. Also this unlimited fusion of evil as well as good. Also this unlimited fusion of evil with good would mean mere nothingness. He is something decided and is thereby limited."
Anyways, if you want to try, you can attempt to get your mind around the book MSM is based on:
http://alfrednorthwhitehead.wwwhubs.com/ritm1.htm