words, words, words.

It's 1 am and i'm a little dreary. But here's a thought -

Well, to get to the point quickest, how about a little stage setting:

In a 2005 interview, Eugene Peterson says this:

"It's very dangerous to use the language of the culture to interpret the gospel. Our vocabulary has to be chastened and tested by revelation, by the Scriptures. We've got a pretty good vocabulary and syntax, and we'd better start paying attention to it because the way we grab words here and there to appeal to unbelievers is not very good."

In that vein - I was thinking about the word 'saved', as in 'salvation', and the array of other meanings this word has elsewhere in our western culture. Following the idea that the meaning we attach to any word as we hear or read it comes directly from our amalgamation of all the previous times we have heard that word used, I think we might need to re-think the use of this word as it pertains to God's actions towards us, his children, because I reckon his works have very little in common with the way we 'save' a document on a computer, save something by keeping it in the fridge, a goal-keeper saving a shot, or my savings account at my bank. I fear the polysemous nature of the word might detract from the meaning it is supposed to have when used in evangelism. Especially if the audience is unfamiliar with 'church language'.

So, for clarity's sake, i reckon we should probably replace it with something closer to the target. Like 'rescued' or 'restored', or better yet - a good, long story about what God has done and is doing through his son and through his people in the world.

I am certain dozens of theologians have already banged a very similiar drum, but this specific instance of how different the meanings of 'saved' are struck me the other day.

Ok, off to bed.

some thoughts on empathies/theodicy

So, I have been (once again) intellectually crushing on NT Wright. Found a great collection of his lectures online (here), and was listening to this one the other day, in which Tom's debate partner, Bart Ehrman (a Wheaton grad, interestingly) takes the familiar stance of 'look at all the suffering in the world: all the starving children, all the people killed by natural disasters, &c. There simply cannot be a God who is both all-loving and all-powerful, and so - since these qualities are essential to God qua God - it is doubtful that there is a God in any real sense at all.'

This problem of suffering - a derivative of the problem of evil (aka -theodicy) - is almost always posed by mentioning the large-scale sufferings around the world (hunger, disease, the holocaust &c.) - these are what cause so much upset to Dr. Ehrman, and I reckon have likewise pushed many people into agnosticism.

The trouble is - I don't buy it.

Their empathy I mean. Their sense of despair regarding all of the 'horrifying' 'tragedies' that befall so many others around the world. That is the reason they can't believe in God? No way.

I am dubious for two reasons:

1) No one cares that much about the suffering of others. I personally take pains to maintain a sensitivity to others around me. I don't watch violent or extreme movies, I read the news, I study history and I try and keep a tender heart towards the world. I have never received feedback from others that I am unusually callous toward my fellow human, In fact - the opposite. And yet when I hear about all these large-scale tragedies (and I have heard about them - I would be surprised if there exists a large-scale suffering in the world that I haven't heard of), I barely bat an eye-lid. On the contrary, when tragedy (which so far in life has primarily taken the form of untimely deaths) hits close to home, I am devastated emotionally. Crying and upset for weeks on end - often very angry and confused with God - but for some reason they have never pushed me to doubt God's presence, character and workings, and the agnostics in question likewise seem to use personal examples very seldomly. Now, with regards to empathy for global-scale pain, it very well may be the case that there is a degree of maturity that I have not yet reached, wherein a sense of the existence (and subsequently - the suffering) of others is deeper and more visceral. If this is so, then this post here is moot, but if not (and I am banking on it being 'not'), then i proffer the following explanation:

2) People who are fixated on the world's problems are projecting the anxiety they feel about their own inner-state onto the world at-large. Thus, their empathy is not genuine, and cannot be the ground for a real theodicy problem. Two objections to this idea raise themselves in my mind off the bat, but I think both can be fairly dismissed:

objection one: This is just pop-Freudian nonsense.

retort: I have seen this in several patients who admit to having mental health issues at the hospital i work at. They will identify that they have a lot of emotional tumult, and will also admit that they think about the atrocities of the world frequently throughout the day. I myself did this very thing when I was in an emotionally 'tough season' in college. In as much as 'logic' can be used when speaking of an unconscious mind, there is some 'logic' to such a projection: Like any defense mechanism, it allows the will to focus on something other than the pain at hand, while at the same time, since the issues relate by analogy, one can address one's own suffering indirectly by examining the suffering of others. Furthermore, unlike interior suffering, which is often very inarticulateable and shifting - the suffering of the world bears a more concrete and statistical character - rendering it more open to concrete helping-actions, unlike the hard-to-help crisis going on inside.

objection two: Even if it is the case that those who speak of global suffering are merely engaging in an act of psychological projection, so what? attention is still being brought to issues in the world that genuinely need help, and moreover - what external claim doesn't have it's roots in some internal pre-occupation?

retort: this objection is entirely valid. In and of itself the issue of presenting the World's suffering needs no psychological explanation, but in this argument I am examining the issue of the World's suffering as it serves in the role of a stumbling block to those who would have otherwise believed in a God. To the one who points it out as such, I think it is more worthwhile to dismiss the problem of Evil as not the person's real beef with God, but as an intellectual distraction, and instead look to more personal reasons for their reticence.

This idea of a more 'personal' hesitation as the real source for unbelief is grounded by the fact that the people who actually suffer in the great tragedies (who were around for the Rwandan genocide, who were there when the earthquake killed half the town, etc) seem to turn to religion in droves, not away from it. The developing world (which is structurally less immune to disease, disaster and tyrants) has the highest percentage of Christians and christian conversion on the planet.

Furthermore, the problem of Evil is so often presented by wealthy, white intellectuals, and I think part of the 'more personal' reasons that this is the case is the latent guilt we have inherited along with all of our money. Deep down, we realize that the nightmares that happen on an annual basis somewhere in the developing world are caused in part by the legacy of colonialism, from which our wallets are padded. When i imagine a professor like Bart Ehrman 'selling all he has and giving to the poor', for some reason I imagine his personal theodicy problems disappearing along with his Franklins. No?

Now - after having said all this about why I am dubious of the empathy of others (as I remember the Chesterton quote - 'it is one of the meanest things for a human to doubt the sentiment of another human', and this, in the Victorian era of puffery!) - two final thoughts on the still-very-real problem of Evil/Suffering:

Firstly - I think a helpful division can be made between suffering brought about by more natural causes (earthquakes, storms, etc) and suffering caused by more human institutions. By making this split I reckon a fair amount of suffering can be accounted for without having to blame God:

In the first - natural disasters - i think it is helpful to re-frame ourselves as fellow animals on this Earth. If a cow was caught in an unforeseen mud-slide and was killed, would there be a moral problem? no - it would merely be a part of how nature has always done it's thing. Likewise if we humans happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - why is God to blame? In the second - malicious rulers and oppressive societal structures - we can see the clear connection between one person's suffering and the oppressor who caused it. Thus, a bad human, or bad society is directly responsible, not God.

Of course there is and will always be a (larger or smaller) remainder of suffering yet unaccounted for, and like any honest human/Christian, in the face of such suffering I would not propound an explanation as a source of meaning, but would rather seek comfort and healing for the wounded. But this is a pastoral thought, separate from the intellectual contention I have maintained thus far.

Thoughts?

Endnote -

My favorite anecdote vis-a-vis the theodicy problem:

My friend Zac was riding in a car with some friends of his, late at night, and they were mockingly posing 'deep' questions to each other: "what is happiness?" etc. Zac threw into the mix "Why do bad things happen to good people?" with an air of faux-self-seriousness, and his friend Jesse, who had been driving and looking straight ahead looked right at him with a face flat and serious, obviously dropping all of the pretensions of the game and said sincerely: "what good people?" ...