Post-Sabbath Theology Hoisting from Comments

The highly intelligent Jacob Levy writes in counterfactual mode:

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: Sabbath Theology Blogging: If there is an omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent Creator who has nonetheless created beings with free will--if somehow the human condition is somehow compatible with such a thing--then, although I keep using the word "benevolence," it must not mean what I think it means. How can I have any idea how such a being would, or could, be able to reconcile its omnipotence with our free will, and what rules would govern such a reconciliation? How could I know what morality would mean to a being who was not suspended between the noumenal and phenomenal worlds, to whom the metaphysical was not opaque, who did not occupy the circumstances of justice, and who was its own telos? Yes, I do think I'm ignorant of what morality could mean in that context.

Now, this doesn't trouble me on an ongoing basis because I don't subscribe to the belief in that Creator, and so I think we know what good and evil are.... But if I'm wrong about that, then it seems likely that morality looks quite different from how it looks to me.

Nevertheless, even though morality would look quite different were that to be the case, I would bet the house that moral behavior for a God would not include much waterboarding-for-eternity, or much eternal roasting of sinners on spits in the flaming gales of flautus that proceed from the haunches of Asmoday.

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John Emerson writes:

[I]t seems to me that Levy did a double reverse flip. Many religions say "We are the only true religions". Unitarians say "All religions have some truth in them, but they should be tolerant." Levy says "All religions have some truth in them, and they should not be tolerant."

Exactly. The substance is horrifying. But the technical difficulty of the dive.... Of course, only religions that fear what other religions would do to them will support liberal secular norms of tolerance, and Jacob Levy is a deep student of Judith Shklar and her "liberalism of fear."

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Matt writes:

Blah. Whatever his small virtues as a writer may by, can we agree that it's quite silly to quote Heinlein as any sort of moral or religious authority?... [H]e's really not much of a moral thinker, perhaps a step above Rand but not likely much, and that's saying very little.

I agree. Isaac Asimov is much higher in quality as a moral thinker and religious authority. Particularly in his reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan.

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And, of course Unfogged.

Comments

[Jacob T. Levy]

I *think* I've just been accused of being a Straussian Shklarian. Were I to pull that off, *then* I should be awarded very serious points for technical difficulty! (Said with all respect to those Mansfield-and-Shklar-educated friends of mine who are, now that I think about it, Straussian Shklarians of a sort-- but not in the sense that's meant here.)

>I would bet the house that moral behavior >for a God would not include much >waterboarding-for-eternity, or much >eternal roasting of sinners on spits in >the flaming gales of flautus that proceed >from the haunches of Asmoday.

You're a bettinger man than I. Some huge proportion of those who have believed in that being, who have thought that they had access to information about its existence that I lack, have also thought that there was some long-term punishment for defying its will. If they're right that they had information I lack about the first, then their beliefs about that being stand some good chance of being an efficient epistemic shorthand-- that is, conditional on their having valid information about God's existence, I'd be unwilling to bet that their information about his will, his practices, and his rules was all wrong, and that my pre-existing moral code happened to track God's will better than their scriptures.

>it's quite silly to quote Heinlein as any >sort of moral or religious authority?...

Well, OK, but I was relying on his phrasing, not his authority...

Somehow I think we have gotten far, far off the topic...

>Levy says "All religions have some truth >in them, and they should not be
>tolerant."

Nope. I really don't.

I am, as it were, completely agnostic as to whether any of the religions have any truth in them, and I decline to prescribe whether they should be theologically tolerant. I insist that we outsiders should not presume to instruct them that they should be theologically tolerant. And I insist that, whatever the potential virtues of a theologically tolerant believer over a theologically intolerant believer as a neighbor or a fellow citizen, that doesn't entitle me to declare the former's religion better qua religion-- because in this context "better" must mean "truer," not only "more congenial to live next door to," and I don't have access to (or believe in ) that kind of Truth. I'll say to all of them that they should be civilly tolerant-- but beyond that I think that nonbelievers have very limited say, and that there's a tendency among nonbelievers in contemporary liberal societies to way overstep that bound (making us in turn bad neighbors).

[Bradford DeLong]

I would have said that I was accusing you of being a Hobbesian Shklarian. As it is the fear of violent death at the hands of others that compels all rational people to bend the knee to Hobbes's Leviathan, so it is the fear of persecution by other religions that compels all rational religions to bend the knee to the liberal separation of church and state...

[Jacob T. Levy]

Ah. Hobbesian Shklarian is fair, and has been used to describe me before. I thought you were suggesting that I might be disingenously encouraging intolerant religions so that they would understand that other religions were intolerant and settle down.

You know, you once described blogging as being something like having a lot of your favorite fellow professors available down the hallway. This has now veered into something more like having very smart, very literate fellow freshmen in your dorm room at three o'clock in the morning; at least, we never discuss things like this in any departmental hallway I know of.

[John Emerson]

And frankly, without this interchange most people would not know that violent Unitarian-Particularists survive in the Balkans.

The composer Bela Bartok was a Unitarian, BTW, and his son Bela Jr. was at one time the lay leader of the Hungarian Unitarian Church. He was not, however, a Szekely.

[derek c]

I also liked Asimov's explanation of the story of Ruth, in his essay "Lost in Non-Translation".

"When was the last time *your* child was chased home by a gang of Moabite kids?"

[anne]

Jacob Levy:

"I thought you were suggesting that I might be disingenously encouraging intolerant religions so that they would understand that other religions were intolerant and settle down."

Perfect; I'll do the encouraging and blame your both.

[Barry]

Jacob T. Levy:

"You're a bettinger man than I. Some huge proportion of those who have believed in that being, who have thought that they had access to information about its existence that I lack, have also thought that there was some long-term punishment for defying its will. "

This is Slate at its purest. What grounds do you have for assuming that they have j*ck for information that you don't? Particularly when their 'information' seems to reinforce what they'd otherwise want done, as seems to happen the majority of the time.

"If they're right that they had information I lack about the first, then their beliefs about that being stand some good chance of being an efficient epistemic shorthand--..."

And if they're wrong, then they're misleading you. And if they disagree quite a bit, which they do, what then?

[Julian Elson]

This would all be much simpler if God granted clerics any power. When a cleric holds up a holy symbol and channels divine power when confronting a bunch of undead, do the undead flee in terror, or cower in awe? If they flee, the cleric turned them, and God is good. If they cower, the cleric rebuked them, and God is evil.

I think that the "God is a thug" position basically runs into the same (slightly modified) problem as the "God is good" position: if God's such a jerk, why is there good in the world?

However, if we do accept that it is, in fact, the real, objective truth that there is God, and she's evil, then what should we do in terms of religion?

Well, if God gives her lackeys and sycophants nice places in heaven after death, and sends everyone else to hell, then deciding to be a sycophant to this evil God is an understandable position. I certainly wouldn't blame anyone for trying to escape an eternity in hell instead of an eternity in paradise.

However, it certainly isn't an admirable thing to do. This isn't to say that people who decide to appease and surrender to God are all bad people, but from a moral perspective, clearly you should fight against God however you can, and if you can't fight against God, you shouldn't pay her any respect.

A utilitarian might say that if God is omnipotent and evil, then bowing and scraping is the morally right thing to do, because you stand a chance at salvation, and there's nothing you can do to change the system, then not worshipping God is all pain, no gain; a meaningless and pointless stand for principle. Even here, though, one must acknowledge that the morally good thing is getting into heaven and enjoying eternity and not being subject to eternal pain in hell, not obeying God per se.

From a non-utilitarian, intuitive perspective, it seems like worshipping God, even with the mercenary purpose of getting into heaven, isn't a good thing as a utilitarian might say, but a corrupt, bad thing. From this perspective, the follower of a religion that postulates an evil God (some kind of Calvinism-at-its-worst type religion) has no leg to stand on morally. He might be forgivable, since we all sometimes make compromises with injustice in the world, and none of us are full-time saints, but he is certainly not praiseworthy.

[andres]

Nice thought Julian. An elaboration:

http://personales.ya.com/poesias/index.htm

SONETO A CRISTO CRUCIFICADO

No me mueve, mi Dios, para quererte
el cielo que me tienes prometido,
ni me mueve el infierno tan temido
para dejar por eso de ofenderte.

Tú me mueves, Señor, muéveme el verte
clavado en una cruz y escarnecido,
muéveme ver tu cuerpo tan herido,
muévenme tus afrentas y tu muerte.

Muéveme, en fin, tu amor, y en tal manera,
que aunque no hubiera cielo, yo te amara,
y aunque no hubiera infierno, te temiera.

No me tienes que dar porque te quiera,
pues aunque lo que espero no esperara,
lo mismo que te quiero te quisiera.

[Anónimo: Atribuido a Santa Teresa]

[To the Crucified Christ: I am not moved, my God, to love You by the heaven that You have promised me; nor am I moved by fearful hell to cease for that reason to offend You. You are what moves me, Lord; it moves me to see You nailed to a cross and scorned; it moves me to see Your body so wounded; I am moved b the insults and death that You undergo. I am moved, in sum, by love for You, and so greatly that, even if there were no heaven, I would love You, and even if there were no hell, I would fear You. you do not have to give me anything to make me love You, for even if I did not hope for what I do hope for, I would Love You the same as I do love You. (Anonymous: attributed to Saint Teresa)]

Reading that simple sonnet is about as Catholic as I ever get. But the point holds; God is not a thug simply because he gave us the free will to crucify each other or drop napalm bombs down on civilian populations. One can love god precisely because he endowed us with free will in spite of all those horrors, as well as the ability to be moved to compassion by human suffering. Call it an irrational act of faith on my part, but in spite of all human horrors, God still loves us.

[Matt]

The problem with God as Levy describes him is that he is just Hitler in the Sky with Diamonds. He's a terrifying beast that we can't understand and that might torture us for all ages for things we can't help but do. Now, there's good reason to fear such a being, and a being like that makes several appearances in the old testiment and a few in the New, but it's an offense to language to call what he does "morality" or "benevolence". Even if you're the biggest monster in the universe doesn't make you all-benevolent, even if those who are (rightfully) terrified of you say so over and over in hopes that you'll not be cast in to an endless lake of burning fire. And for love! Love, he'll tell you.

[Anderson]

I'm surprised not to see Plato's "Euthyphro" make an appearance here. IIRC from many years ago, Plato addresses the question: is God good just because he's God, or is God good because he does what's good? I.e., is "good" a synonym for "whatever God likes/wants/is," or is "good" independent of God?

Plato of course picks the latter. I say "of course" because that's the move which distinguishes philosophy from theology. The Good is a subject which we can hope to know independently of our knowledge of God.

What's needed for civil society in the 21st century is general agreement to accept Plato's thesis (which, needless to say, is scarcely "proved" in the dialogue). Knowledge of God is honorable, but knowledge of the Good may be pursued without reference to any specific deity.

[John Emerson]

Pastor que con tus silbos amorosos
me despertaste del profundo sueño;
tú, que hiciste cayendo de ese leño
en que tiendes los brazos poderosos

vuelve los ojos a mi fe piadosos
pues tu confieso por mi amor y dueño
y la palabra de seguirte empeño
tus dulces silbos y tus pies hermosos.

Oye, pastor, pues por amores mueres
no te espante el rigor de mis pecados
pues tan amigo de rendidos eres.

Espera, pues, y escucha mis cuidados....
Pero ¿cómo te digo que me esperes
si estás para esparar los pies clavados?

Lope de Vega, Rimas Sacras (1614, #XIV

[Scott Martens]

> How can I have any idea how such a being would, or could, be able to reconcile its omnipotence with our free will, and what rules would govern such a reconciliation?

Well, let me take a shot. I could swear I stole this idea from Mark Twain, but I can't remember from which of his works.

Consider Buffy, the Vampire Slayer (we all watched Buffy, right?) Buffy may or may not be an atheist, but she certainly has free will. Indeed, her free will and the consequentialness of her actions and the actions of others are born out over and over again in the course of the program. Buffy certainly never believes that there's an omniscient, omnipotent personal creator god who is going to save her ass. Perversely, considering that the whole premise of the show is based on the supernatural, Buffy is certainly seems to have a very atheist set of themes and this is born out in interviews of Joss Whedon, a resolute atheist.

And yet, the Buffyverse has an omnipotent, omniscient, creator god who is personally concerned with Buffy's life, who suffuses meaning into the life of every person in the Buffyverse, and who, according to the episodes at the beginning of season six, has even provided for a decent afterlife. Buffy's god is, naturally, Whedon himself, in conjunction with a pantheon of writers, directors and producers.

That's my case for agnosticism - the possibility that the universe is a narrative and thus needs a narrator.

But what could divine benevolence mean in such a context? What does the author owe to his characters? That they should be compelling and true to themselves, if he's a good author. The bad guys in Buffy are bad because Whedon made them that way, to be sure, but they are no less responsible for themselves because of it.

There's a film that also takes up this theme: the critically panned Arnold Schwartzeneggar action-fantasy "Last Action Hero". In it, Schwartzeneggar offers a most unchristian answer to the question of what the created owe their creator: nothing whatsoever.

There's as little point to theology as there would be to Buffy speculating about what Joss Whedon wants her to do.

[John Emerson]

Besides the evidential problems, the supposed existence of God has coherence problems. Omnipotence vs. Omniscience vs. Logical Consistency is just one of them.

He's just this bin of wish-fulfillment into which people toss all the things they want but don't have. It would seem that if someone that important and powerful did actually exist, his existence would not be something people argued about.

"I doubt, therefore God does not exist". God, if he exists, is a Thing of such perfection that, if He existed, His existence could not be doubted. But His existence is doubted. Therefore He does not exist.

[And neither does She.]

This kind of naive, XIXc, positivist atheism is passe, partly because it's too obvious and flat-footed, and partly because atheism doesn't do any of the work that theism claims to be able to do. No salvation, no afterlife, no ecstacy, no grounding of ethics or politics. However, the argument from skepticism has a lot of strength.

[mds]

"Well, if God gives her lackeys and sycophants nice places in heaven after death, and sends everyone else to hell, then deciding to be a sycophant to this evil God is an understandable position. I certainly wouldn't blame anyone for trying to escape an eternity in hell instead of an eternity in paradise.

However, it certainly isn't an admirable thing to do."

No, but it describes the primary motivation I encountered while growing up a fundamentalist Christian. The whole point is to get saved, so you're safe. Then all of the good works required by Jesus and James get flushed down the toilet and replaced with the Great Commission exclusively. So it's a system where your place is guaranteed once you "give your heart to Jesus," but you get Hereafter Points for converting others, redeemable (pun intended) for crowns or somesuch. 'Cause no matter how egalitarian Jesus makes the afterlife sound, you just know that Falwell et al. believe that they'll be lording it over hoi polloi in Heaven. It's that virulent strain of Christianity that upsets many of us, and makes us disinclined to bow to their "authenticity." Because by the same method that proselytization has been made essential to their beliefs, so has Dominionism. Hey, their authentic beliefs include "returning" us to a Christian nation, and excluding all but Christian males from the franchise. Who am I to oppose such heartfelt beliefs?