Knowing is deciding
Via Jerry Coyne, I find Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which in turn is the “flagship” of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is the notoriously reactionary outfit that Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter abandoned when it ruled that married women are subordinate to their husbands – I find Albert Mohler, I say, turning and rending a Christian less doctrinaire than himself.
In making his case, Giberson uses the old argument that God has given humanity two books of revelation — the Bible and the created order. This is one of Giberson’s most frequently offered arguments. It is a theologically disastrous argument in his hands, for he allows modern naturalistic science to silence the Bible, God’s written revelation.
Right. My question is, how exactly does Mohler know the bible is God’s written revelation? Of course I know roughly how he “knows”: he just does. But I want to know exactly how he knows.
How, for instance, would he know if it were not? How does he know how he would know if it were not? What, exactly, are his criteria? What would the bible be like if it were not God’s written revelation, and how is that different from what the bible is like?
Do they ever say, people like him? Do they ever give any actual reason for “believing” the bible is God’s written revelation?
I don’t think they do. Correct me if I’m wrong. As far as I know they just “believe” it, as one might sign a contract. They sign up to it. It’s not cognitive at all, it’s an act of will.
That’s not the right way to know things.
<i>How, for instance, would he know if it were not?</i>
I suspect Mohler’s position boils down to: he can’t know that it isn’t, because by definition you can’t “know” something that isn’t true, and the Bible is true, by definition.
Grand how sophisticated his theology is, ain’t it?
It’s not just Mohler, though. How does Giberson know that ANY of the Bible is God’s written revelation? The problem isn’t limited to fundies like the Baptists.
I can’t speak for the fabled sophisticated theologians but most of the people I have known really do treat the bible like a software license agreement: Read it? Ha! Just click agree and get on with your life.
I know (not just Giberson). But Mohler is the starkest version.
Just click agree – exactly! Why didn’t I think of that?!
Sometimes they have hallucinations, which make them believe. Its worth noting how often hallucinogenic compounds or situations like hunger or dehydration are associated with religions of all stripes. And some people can find themselves in love with these fictional characters, like Jesus or Zeus, and while that sensation is real, in as much as it reflects actual chemicals running around in their heads, it does not mean that there actually is a Jesus reciprocating, any more than there is an actual Harry Potter.
But all that religious training, and being told that perfectly explainable experiences resulting from misfocused affections and a noon day fast suddenly trump the work of thousands of scientists and philosophers, because it happens to that individual, and makes them feel special.
I’d be interested in seeing studies on the differences (if there are any) in the reasons given for belief by people raised in a particular religion and adult converts to that religion.
@A. Noyd
I’d like to see it too.. I had a ex-girlfriend who went from no-religion to Lutheranism, to Catholicism, and each time it seemed like she just really loved the rituals and community that went with them, and didn’t seem to give much thought to proof.
I rather like this one:
http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML
(“Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the rocks.”)
If god did *not* mean the “created order” to be a means of revelation, then what did god mean the created order to be? IOW “what you gonna believe, your own god-given senses, or this BOOK of ETERNAL TRUTH.?”
I suspect Mohler is on shaky ground even theologically here. For example, how to interpret god’s directive to A&E to “name all the animals,” unless god was using “the created order” as a means of revelation. Mohler idea does, however, go along with the idea that god made up the fossil record to “fool” us.
Ah, the miracle of epistemic closure. Your assertion that he cannot know is clearly wrong, because you haven’t based that assertion on the Bible. So you, therefore, are the deluded one, while he holds the Truth, the Word of God.
Comments on other blogs led me to this: Those people with Right-Wind Authoritarian personality types are not good at critical thinking, but it doesn’t stop them from being certain that their authorities are correct and wanting to force everyone else to follow along. This article describes the followers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism
(see the first paragraph of section 4 Research)
The Leaders have their own personality type:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_dominance_orientation
Ah but notice that I didn’t assert that he cannot know – I asked how he did know.
I did go on to say that I don’t think they ever say how they know, but that’s different from saying they don’t know.
And I did say correct me if I’m wrong. :- )
It all comes down to meaning and purpose doesn’t it. As far as I can see, theology appears no different to literary theory, only theologians think that literature holds the same truth value as logic or science. I think that’s as childish as those who believe the bible is literally true.
The thing that strikes me is that Mohler is not wrong when he says that the “revelation” of natural science silences the Bible, because it in effect cancels revelation as a process. This is the problem of liberal religion. Liberals want to accept the truth of science but can only do so by accepting its epistemic authority. For the Bible to be true it would have to pass the same tests of science, reason and history all knowledge must pass. That’s what we nontheists do, and it raises no problem for us because we’ve come to the conclusion that truth means the passing of such tests, and nothing above or beyond that.
But a liberal like Giberson is in a pickle. He’s a modern science-accepting person, yet he wants to “grandfather” in the authority of revelation. This position highlights the incompatibility that Giberson wishes to deny. If you don’t accepts the reasons of science you aren’t accepting science. Mohler has no such problem since the Bible is true a priori, and science is a matter of appearances, thus he has no trouble seeing clearly from the other side of the barricade that Giberson is trapped.
In order to resolve this unresolvable dilemma modern religion must descend into mysticism, to obscure from any inquirer the starkness of a hopeless straddle. The accomos don’t like it when we go after the moderns, their allies, but we’re right to do so. At the level of coalition politics they are not the problem, but at the deeper level where the arguments take place they are sitting at Ground Zero.
Building off Buford’s comment, I really recommend checking out Bob Altemeyer’s free-to-read book on The Authoritarians. It’s mostly about America’s right wing, but I think he discusses religion at some length; it’s been a while since I read it.
Biblical literalist Christians have a big thing about how Jesus and his birth, works, and death, were “foretold” in various Old Testament prophesies.
It’s a very old game. The author of the book attributed to Matthew loved to tear OT verses out of context and then make stories about Jesus’ life appear to “fulfill” them. This tendency was taken to its ridiculous extreme in Matthew 21: 1-8, where Jesus literally rides–somehow–two donkeys (mother and foal) into Jerusalem, in order to “fulfill” Zechariah 9:9, which reads, “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!…See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” The doubling-with-slight-variation in Zechariah is a poetic convention common in Hebrew literature of its time, but Matthew took it literally. And so Jesus had to ride two donkeys into Jerusalem. Seems uncomfortable, but, hey…anything to fulfill ancient prophecy.
Another example is the Bethlehem story. It’s utterly ridiculous to think that the efficient Romans would have people traipsing around the country in order to pay their taxes. But Jesus of Nazarus–everybody knew where he was from, that’s why they called him that–had to be born in Bethlehem, because some OT verse said the Messiah would be born there, and anyway they wanted to associate him with King David (whose birthplace it was). So they had to get JC’s parents to Bethlehem somehow so he could be born there.
Anyhoo. The literalists will provide you with a long list of OT passages that supposedly prove that Jesus is Lord, it was predicted way back when, so obviously the Bible MUST be the word of God. Point out that the stories were obviously manufactured to fulfill the prophesy, or that the “prophesies” themselves have been ripped out of context and originally referred to something else entirely, and you’ll be met with further rationalizations. But I’ve noticed this tack used a lot to “prove” that the Bible must be the Real Deal.
And while I expect no better from Mohler and Giberson its frustrating when someone like Ken Miller makes comments like Christianity is his preference. Its like the various Gods are options at a buffet table where you choose the one you prefer- I’ll have the least misogynistic one please.
@ Stacy Kennedy #16
The whole dogma of the virgin birth is, IIRC, the result not only of taking something from the OT out of context, but also of the mistranslation of the Hebrew for “young woman” (alma) into the Greek for “virgin” (parthenos). The writer of the virgin birth of Jesus consulted the Greek version of the Jewish scriptures instead of the original Hebrew, thereby launching a whole Christian Virgin Industrial Complex. All out of one messed up word!
To get back to the original topic, how does Mohler “know” that everyone else’s holy books are wrong? What could he possibly point to in them as faults that could not be turned around and used against the veracity of his holy book?
Grendel’s Dad:
+1 internets for the software licence analogy
Ophelia Benson
The Bible exists for God to communicate with His creation. It even says so in the Bible…somewhere. Also, God is infallible, which makes the Bible true. We have the definition and you can’t argue with definitions.
Egbert
I took a course called The Bible as Literature for an elective. It was pretty obvious the instructor was Christian, though she kept the theologizing (as you describe it) to a minimum. In just one class, I gained a better understanding of (and appreciation for) the different books than all the years of Catholic education had achieved.
Right. Again – what would it look like if someone else’s holy book were right and the bible were wrong? What would be different? How would Mohler or anyone be able to tell?
Yes but what would be different if that were just a claim as opposed to the truth? How would Mohler or anyone be able to tell?
An inquiring world wants to know.
From the Christian perspective, “god exists” is an equivalent truth claim as the bible being his word.
It seems to be part of the same belief; one can’t question the truth of the bible without questioning god’s existence. So really it goes back to the first assumption and around and around we go. In other words, asking Mohler to falsify his statement–to ask how would he know if the bible were not the word of god–is perceived as questioning god’s existence. Does that mean that the more literal you take the Bible to be the word of God the more Christian you are? Perhaps for Mohler it does.
Anyway, that’s how I’ve seen it sometimes play-out in discussions with people.
I think Gnu Atheism recognizes this dilemma in dialogue by repeatedly returning to the source: the question of god’s existence. But that’s not how the game is played and they take a lot of flack for what I think many people believe is somehow cheating.
I recently read an explanation for why there can be no physical evidence for the existence of God.
It’s because of free will.
We need the freedom to choose to believe in God – hence God gave us free will. He also refuses to give us firm evidence of HIS existence. If He gave us firm evidence then we wouldn’t need faith as we wouldn’t be able to choose to believe or not.
This sort of explanation works fine so long as you have it within a self contained system. There can be no history of God interacting with humans or the logic falls apart.
The funny thing is that it’s is frequently touted by christians – who seem to forget all that stuff about Jesus coming to Earth, performing miracles, rising from the dead and flying up to heaven. Oi Jesus! What about the free will of your disciples! ?
@Sigmund,
that’s nothing more than an excuse for lack of evidence, because if there were evidence, they would show us. Each time they think they have found evidence (like a miracle healing or a statue that cries) they are quick to show it to us. Also they like to come up with ontological arguments, supposedly proving rationally that their god exists, thus making faith unnecessary.
Bull.
jose, I realize that it’s an excuse. All the previous evidences (acts of nature, the cosmos, design of biological structures etc) have been snatched away by science with such success that any religious person with a bit of sense now avoids suggesting anything else in nature as evidence for God.
The thing about Jesus and his miracles is that by taking the stories as literal (which 99% of christians do!) you are faced with something which directly contradicts the idea that it is wrong to expect evidence of God.
You cannot have a rule that says that providing evidence negates ‘free will’ (‘free will’ itself is another argument) and at the same time say that Jesus is real and worthy of worship because of the miracles that were witnessed by the disciples!
The disciples didn’t need any faith. They had evidence. Therefore providing evidence is possible and has been done before by Jesus (they tell us!). The question becomes why not now?
I agree with #20. gillt says:
The Bible says it is the word of God. Case rested.
I saw a sign once someone had stuck up on the wall in a pub. It simply said “DISREGARD THIS NOTICE”. Absolutely impossible to ignore or obey.
Though the Bible contradicts itself all over the place, and the Devil can quote it to suit himself, it nowhere says that it is only written by men (& Ruth) and that is not the word of God. This must be taken as further evidence that it is.
A more basic problem with the free will explanation, I think, is that one of the things humans do best is sort true from false. The “free will” explanation demands that we stop doing what we do best and do the opposite instead. It demands that we stop trying to sort true from false in the case of god, and just take its word for it – its putative word for it, which we don’t have any reason to think is even its word, let alone reliable or true. It demands that we be stupid and credulous when we have the ability (up to a point) not to be those. What kind of shitty god wants us to throw out all our tools and just be stupid instead? Not one I’m going to “worship,” I can tell you that.
I know. But the thing is – I could write a new book that says “this is God’s word” inside. How would Mohler know the new one wasn’t God’s word? What criteria would he be using? That’s what I want to know.
There are other holy books. Why does Mohler consider them not the word of god?
I think the implication of a new Bible would be an argument against God’s omniscience, as evidence that God didn’t get it right the first time around.
Yup, but then how does Mohler know there wasn’t an earlier book (or many of them) that said inside “I’m god and this is my book”? What is it about the bible claim that makes it different from any other such claim? I want to know. I want specifics.
When I encounter the ‘can’t have evidence, it negates free will’ argument I always wonder if Satan rings a bell with these folks. The way I heard it Satan definitely knows god exists, and rebels anyway (along with a third of god’s other tenants.) Evidently it is possible to know something exists and still reject it, even if that something is god, or else their own stories don‘t make sense. But then I guess consistency isn‘t a religious virtue.
It’s possible, even likely, these are possibilities Mohler hasn’t given any serious thought to because he thinks they’re too unlikely to be true.
Well sure, but that’s why we need to ask. I don’t think he hasn’t given any serious thought to the possibilities because he thinks they’re too unlikely to be true, I think he just hasn’t given any serious thought to them. He’s clicked yes on the agreement, and that’s all there is to it. But that’s not all there is to it, and he should realize that.
Not that I think he’s going to realize it because I say so, of course.
I am probably giving too much credit to the man. God belief simply flies under the skeptical radar for many people and that’s that.