Note: This is a draft from February 2012 which I decided to publish
I can't believe, and I can't not believe.
Whenever questions like this were brought up in Sunday school, Bible study, etc... I always received the impression that everyone was approaching them like this: "Here are the arguments non-believers are making/questions they have, and here is how we address these arguments/questions in order to bring them into the fold/refute their wicked anti-Christian agenda." I see nothing wrong with looking at things from this perspective, it's just that I can't think of any cases in my own experience (unless one counts encounters with authors such as C.S. Lewis as personal experience) when serious concerns like these were raised as something sincere Christians might themselves seriously struggle with.
The impression I received is that only arrogant skeptics and those hovering on the verge of apostasy, or perhaps the occasional oversensitive intellectual genuinely give credence to such questions and doubts. But actually, I don't see how these ideas aren't a consuming topic of discussion for Christians. How can we claim to have faith when we hide like ostriches from everything that challenges our assumptions? At least, that's what I feel like I've been doing for the past several years. At what point do we stop saying 'It's impossible to know that.', and acknowledge that we feel the desire to know as though it were a physical hunger? At least many of the skeptics and seekers are trying to find answers, and willing to have honest discussions. To be honest, I want to believe that the Bible is perfect and infallible, but I feel more and more that there are inconsistencies which can't just be glossed over. That is, I'm tired of nervously avoiding seeming contradictions to protect the comfortable security of my belief in the Bible's infallibility. Logically, it seems obvious that God's word has to be perfect and infallible, and the minute that this is no longer assumed, textual anarchy reigns. Who is to say what is true, and what is human error? I am seized with terror at the thought of a universe no longer governed by absolute principles and judged by absolute truth, I am convinced that no such universe is possible, yet am careening head on into the possibility that whatever is true, (and something must be!) I can't completely know.
The most intelligent response I've ever absorbed from all my years in church and parachurch functions is:
Start from God, and work backwards, assuming that everything makes sense whether it does or not। This is, to me, the most acceptable answer to the problem, and the one that seems to fit most closely, but I find it less and less satisfying. I'm tired of trying to pretend all of the uncomfortable questions don't exist, or just avoiding everything I can't bring myself to accept. Example: This ____seems to me to be brutal, evil, and unjust. But I know from x, y, and z that God is perfectly loving, good, righteous, and just. Therefore I can rest assured that my corrupt human instincts are leading me astray, and that God's thoughts are higher than mine. It's ok to not understand. If God did it, it was right.
This, for me, leads to a very uncomfortable confrontation with the Euthyphro problem: Is God good because he conforms to an objective standard of goodness, or is goodness defined by whatever God is? If God commands genoicide, does genoicide in that specific instance become goodness, or is the destruction of innocent human life always wrong? Why, if the blood of one Abel was so vocal does the blood of a thousand Canaanite children not cry out from the ground? Obviously it's true that actions of parents/leaders have consequences which extend to their descendants, but why is it alright? Why should the fourth generation suffer for the first? How can one group of people be commanded to massacre another down to the last newborn child and frolicking lamb, carry out orders, and not be horrifically warped? Agreeing that human sacrifice, temple prostitution, torture, and sexual perversion are wrong and deserve punishment, how exactly is mass murder more acceptable, or a viable solution? Agreeing that God is concerned with our character, not our circumstances, and that a slave should serve Christ as humbly and wholeheartedly as a free man, how is it possible for one man to 'own' another created in God's image as he might a dog or a cow, and to, theoretically, exercise the same control over his fellow's life? When is it ok to stand up, say 'This is wrong', and give the full fire of your passion and energy to abolishing it? Was William Wilberforce deluded by rampant humanism, or was he serving Christ well by attacking cruelty and brutality? Based on the Bible's description of God's vision for mankind, how are periods in church history when the church nearly ceased to exist, or became entirely corrupted (The Avignon papacy, pour exemple) explainable? What happened to the warm fuzziness of overpowering love and personal relationship with the Creator? If the Bible is true, God is not arbitrary, therefore, if something seems arbitrary, I must assume that my perception is at fault. But at what point does this simply become a cop out and catch all? If it doesn't satisfy me, what am I supposed to do? Is there something horribly wrong with me? Is no one else tortured by these things?
I don't want to ask this, and I can't help asking. It makes me miserable, because the questions create doubt, and the doubt coexists uneasily with my belief, and somewhere in the wilderness of believing, and doubting, rebelling and repenting, I feel like a traitor- like a woman who is forced against all her inclinations to doubt the man she loves, yet wracked by guilt for her distrustfulness. Saying in the same breath "I'm sure he could not be wrong! How could he have done this thing?" Hating herself for accusing, hating herself for so nearly hating him for the intolerable situation in which she is placed. I'm quite sure that it's somehow my fault, but I can't quite see how, and unquestionably, that must be my fault as well. My conscience is inexorably accusing the Person and institution from which I have always believed my conscience and moral boundaries to be derived.And if I have to ask? If the answers I find are not the acceptable answers? Where do I go? Where do I belong, where find truth? What wilderness of terrifying moral freedom might I find myself in?
Can I say, like Peter 'Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.' when my questions are drowning me overwhelming me, dragging me away from what I once considered my rock and my security as a hot air balloon might pluck away a small child unfortunate enough to be grasping its basket when it lifts off? It's only another question I can't answer. And I'm afraid. I'm floating away.
I can't believe, and I can't not believe.
Whenever questions like this were brought up in Sunday school, Bible study, etc... I always received the impression that everyone was approaching them like this: "Here are the arguments non-believers are making/questions they have, and here is how we address these arguments/questions in order to bring them into the fold/refute their wicked anti-Christian agenda." I see nothing wrong with looking at things from this perspective, it's just that I can't think of any cases in my own experience (unless one counts encounters with authors such as C.S. Lewis as personal experience) when serious concerns like these were raised as something sincere Christians might themselves seriously struggle with.
The impression I received is that only arrogant skeptics and those hovering on the verge of apostasy, or perhaps the occasional oversensitive intellectual genuinely give credence to such questions and doubts. But actually, I don't see how these ideas aren't a consuming topic of discussion for Christians. How can we claim to have faith when we hide like ostriches from everything that challenges our assumptions? At least, that's what I feel like I've been doing for the past several years. At what point do we stop saying 'It's impossible to know that.', and acknowledge that we feel the desire to know as though it were a physical hunger? At least many of the skeptics and seekers are trying to find answers, and willing to have honest discussions. To be honest, I want to believe that the Bible is perfect and infallible, but I feel more and more that there are inconsistencies which can't just be glossed over. That is, I'm tired of nervously avoiding seeming contradictions to protect the comfortable security of my belief in the Bible's infallibility. Logically, it seems obvious that God's word has to be perfect and infallible, and the minute that this is no longer assumed, textual anarchy reigns. Who is to say what is true, and what is human error? I am seized with terror at the thought of a universe no longer governed by absolute principles and judged by absolute truth, I am convinced that no such universe is possible, yet am careening head on into the possibility that whatever is true, (and something must be!) I can't completely know.
The most intelligent response I've ever absorbed from all my years in church and parachurch functions is:
Start from God, and work backwards, assuming that everything makes sense whether it does or not। This is, to me, the most acceptable answer to the problem, and the one that seems to fit most closely, but I find it less and less satisfying. I'm tired of trying to pretend all of the uncomfortable questions don't exist, or just avoiding everything I can't bring myself to accept. Example: This ____seems to me to be brutal, evil, and unjust. But I know from x, y, and z that God is perfectly loving, good, righteous, and just. Therefore I can rest assured that my corrupt human instincts are leading me astray, and that God's thoughts are higher than mine. It's ok to not understand. If God did it, it was right.
This, for me, leads to a very uncomfortable confrontation with the Euthyphro problem: Is God good because he conforms to an objective standard of goodness, or is goodness defined by whatever God is? If God commands genoicide, does genoicide in that specific instance become goodness, or is the destruction of innocent human life always wrong? Why, if the blood of one Abel was so vocal does the blood of a thousand Canaanite children not cry out from the ground? Obviously it's true that actions of parents/leaders have consequences which extend to their descendants, but why is it alright? Why should the fourth generation suffer for the first? How can one group of people be commanded to massacre another down to the last newborn child and frolicking lamb, carry out orders, and not be horrifically warped? Agreeing that human sacrifice, temple prostitution, torture, and sexual perversion are wrong and deserve punishment, how exactly is mass murder more acceptable, or a viable solution? Agreeing that God is concerned with our character, not our circumstances, and that a slave should serve Christ as humbly and wholeheartedly as a free man, how is it possible for one man to 'own' another created in God's image as he might a dog or a cow, and to, theoretically, exercise the same control over his fellow's life? When is it ok to stand up, say 'This is wrong', and give the full fire of your passion and energy to abolishing it? Was William Wilberforce deluded by rampant humanism, or was he serving Christ well by attacking cruelty and brutality? Based on the Bible's description of God's vision for mankind, how are periods in church history when the church nearly ceased to exist, or became entirely corrupted (The Avignon papacy, pour exemple) explainable? What happened to the warm fuzziness of overpowering love and personal relationship with the Creator? If the Bible is true, God is not arbitrary, therefore, if something seems arbitrary, I must assume that my perception is at fault. But at what point does this simply become a cop out and catch all? If it doesn't satisfy me, what am I supposed to do? Is there something horribly wrong with me? Is no one else tortured by these things?
I don't want to ask this, and I can't help asking. It makes me miserable, because the questions create doubt, and the doubt coexists uneasily with my belief, and somewhere in the wilderness of believing, and doubting, rebelling and repenting, I feel like a traitor- like a woman who is forced against all her inclinations to doubt the man she loves, yet wracked by guilt for her distrustfulness. Saying in the same breath "I'm sure he could not be wrong! How could he have done this thing?" Hating herself for accusing, hating herself for so nearly hating him for the intolerable situation in which she is placed. I'm quite sure that it's somehow my fault, but I can't quite see how, and unquestionably, that must be my fault as well. My conscience is inexorably accusing the Person and institution from which I have always believed my conscience and moral boundaries to be derived.And if I have to ask? If the answers I find are not the acceptable answers? Where do I go? Where do I belong, where find truth? What wilderness of terrifying moral freedom might I find myself in?
Can I say, like Peter 'Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.' when my questions are drowning me overwhelming me, dragging me away from what I once considered my rock and my security as a hot air balloon might pluck away a small child unfortunate enough to be grasping its basket when it lifts off? It's only another question I can't answer. And I'm afraid. I'm floating away.
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