Atheists and Other Accidents of Poor Theological Literacy

(Frontispiece to Richard Bentley's "The Folly of Atheism," 1692; image is in the public domain: { { PD-1923 } } )

Having recently been amused and annoyed by a series of atheist blogs that seemed to have no actual understanding of Christianity, I thought it would be of service to give a measured response. My main thrust here is to offer a helpful critique of the things that many atheists/agnostics say, and to give my readers a few mental tools so as not to be cowed by the sheer bluster of atheists’ intellectualized bravado. And, though I’m going to be critical of them here, I should give full disclosure and say that I’m sympathetic to the atheist position. I find their adherence to an 18^th-century sense of confidence in the power of pure reason quaintly charming; I admire and share their passion for the natural sciences; and I respect the personal courage it has taken for many of them to follow their quest for truth, here in a society that has not always welcomed their voices.

As you may have noticed, atheists and agnostics are becoming markedly more vocal in our society. To a certain extent, this is a good thing, and I applaud the fact that we live in a society in which people of different religious viewpoints are permitted to speak their ideas into the public forum. But the other side of that coin is that the people who do speak up sometimes don’t quite know what they’re talking about, or, even if they do, they often misunderstand their opponents’ position. And, to top it all off, it’s often done (especially in our Internet age) in a spirit of ridicule and arrogance rather than humility and respect. (Please note that this description of the public interchange of religious views is just as true of many Christians as it is of a few atheists/agnostics.) Now, it’s true that there are a few very thoughtful craftings of the atheist argument out there; I’ve read some of them and have enjoyed the intellectual challenge they present (for instance, Michael Martin’s Atheism: A Philosophical Justification). I’m not mainly addressing those works, though—I’m speaking more to the arguments one might find in online dialogue, from the mouths of pundit ideologues, and in the pages of some of the books of the “New Atheist” movement. 

So, to help my Christian readers gain some traction against the occasional atheist tirade, and to help any atheist/agnostic readers not fall into a succession of obvious fallacies, I offer the following observations. (We'll do one observation this week, and a couple more on next Friday's post.)

Observation #1 (How Atheists Fail at Theology): Atheists tend to be at their strongest when they argue from philosophy, not theology. The reason is this: when trying to argue against Christian theology, atheist ideologues usually appeal to the extreme edges of doctrine to make their points, and they often do this by picking on debatable theological positions. It's not uncommon to run across statements like this: "It's morally repugnant to believe in a God who would send people to eternal physical torture in literal hellfire just because they're not convinced by the evidence that Jesus is his Son." Statements like this reflect not only a shockingly simplistic understanding of the process of salvation (as some kind of intellectualized persuasion), but reduce the doctrine of hell--a much-debated field within Christian theology--to its most grimly offensive view, as if that's what all Christians have always believed. Further, even for those portions of the Christian tradition that do hold the particular view they’re attacking, the atheists’ argument usually shows no signs of having studied enough to truly understand the doctrine in any depth (in the case in hand, they will have made no study of the doctrines of sin, human responsibility, holiness, and justice). Even the most foundational doctrines—such as the nature of God—often seem to be too much of a waste of time for atheists to consider actually picking up a book of good theology to consult on the matter. Imagine their surprise to find that most Christians don’t conceive of God as an invisible sky-fairy! Or that some Christians do not actually conceive of the eternal destiny of non-Christians as being an everlasting course of actual physical torture in literal fire. Or that some hold to early-church interpretations of Genesis which allow much more room for theological readings, allegories, and an honest intersection with modern science. Instead, atheists cripple their own arguments by appealing only to the position on these issues that most repels them, while ignoring other possible interpretations within the rich and varied field of Christian theology, possibilities that many people would actually find reasonable and spiritually compelling. (Incidentally, if there are any Christian readers who would like a fresh take on some of the other plausible interpretations of the doctrines I just mentioned, then follow along with my Saturday series of posts on my theological "95 Theses"). I often read through atheist and agnostic blogs, hoping to find someone who has made an honest study of Christian theology, but have yet to be rewarded in my search. As a result, atheists end up eviscerating row after row of straw men instead of honestly addressing Christian doctrines.

Now, a criticism of my own evangelical tradition: although it’s true that atheists should read more theology before sounding off, it’s equally true that they hold the caricatures of Christianity that they do because we Christians have been poor communicators (and often, poor students) of the theological richness to which we are heirs. We’ve allowed them to hold ridiculous views of Christian doctrine because we’ve dumbed down the Gospel to the point of making it insipid, and it’s probably good for us to face a challenge which will force us to return to the depth and beauty of the broader Christian tradition.

But to sum up: a great critique, of religion or anything else, is not the one which generates the most sound bites, but the one which has clearly done the hard work of seeking to understand its opponents’ positions on their own terms. By that measure, most of modern atheism's critiques of Christianity fall short.

 
(Picture inset, above: a pictorial representation of hell from Hortus Deliciarum, by Herrad of Landsberg, c. 1180; image is in the public domain)

Christ before the High Priest

(Painting: "Christ before the High Priest," by Gerard van Honthorst, c. 1617)

 Way back when Rachel and I were college freshmen, we encountered this painting. We were part of the First-Year Honors Program at Houghton College, which took us over to London for our spring semester. There we studied history, philosophy, literature, and art, from ancient times to the present. Much of our workload had us going out to the many museums in London to see firsthand some of the great works of Western civilization. By the end of the semester, the National Gallery had come to feel like a home away from home. And even after seeing and studying thousands of paintings, there were a few that managed to stick in one's memory and imagination. For both me and Rachel, this was one such painting. (We now have a print of it hanging in our dining room.) The original work is of large proportions--nine feet tall by six feet wide--so it readily commands the attention, even in a crowded gallery.

Appreciating great paintings is a skill that's being lost in our present society, thanks to the over-saturation of our culture with images. But imagine that you lived before the Internet, before television, before photography, perhaps even before woodcut illustrations in printed texts. In that world, an image was an exceptionally rare thing. Rather than a mass-produced image file, one of millions you could look at, an image in those days would have been the singular creation of an artist's genius and hard work. As such, most images that were made had a high degree of intentionality and meaningfulness worked into them, in contrast to much of today's photographic imagery. To sit with a great painting is, in a way, much the same thing as to read a great work of literature--to open one's mind to conversation with a thoughtful perspective from another age, another culture, another way of looking at the human condition. 

So, in order to assist my readers with an appreciation of the paintings I post here on the occasional Throwback Thursday, I'll give a few pointers as to objects of particular notice in each painting. I don't claim to be an art expert, so don't anyone take these sputtering thoughts to help write a paper on art criticism or anything; but I'd like to at least be able to share a bit of the sense of wonder and depth that I experience in the presence of a great painting. (And, naturally, this is a less-than-perfect medium--I would advise you to go visit a museum, where you can actually see the colors and the brushwork in front of you, rather than to read my blog about paintings.)

The first thing to know about this painting is that it was influenced by Caravaggio's style of tenebrism (a particular version of chiaroscuro). This means that the painting is characterized by large contrasts between light and dark, such that the contrast itself becomes one of the leading stylistic elements. For a painting like this, whose subject is Christ, the style is fitting: Jesus is "the light [which] shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it" (John. 1:5). The irony of the image is that the high priest, who holds on his table the only source of visible light in the room, cannot understand that the Light of the World is standing before him. He also has the open book of the Law of Moses in front of him, unaware that the man across the table is both the One who inspired those ancient words (the quill pen leans toward Christ, hinting to him as the author), and who is himself their final fulfillment. A second book is also open on the table, but turned away from the high priest, as if he does not consult this one--perhaps a reference to the Old Testament prophets, who speak about the coming Servant of God. Also, notice the interplay between the postures and faces of the two men: the high priest, though seated and required to look up into the face of Christ, is proud and accusatory. Christ, though his posture and clothing reveal a submission to the events of his Passion, shows no submission to the message of this high priest--his eyes are locked on the priest's, silent but strong. Now look at the contrast between the two men's hands. The high priest holds up a single finger, lecturing Christ. This priest is certain that he has the truth, and is defensive against Christ's claim to be, in and of himself, "the Truth." Christ's hands are bound, but not really passive. They are elegant and strong, and composed together in a patient assurance of his own truthfulness, an assurance so strong that it has no need of making a defense against the high priest's attack. Finally, look at the other faces in the painting. There are a few shadowy figures behind Christ, representing the soldiers who arrested Jesus and brought him to this trial. But behind the high priest stand two men in Renaissance-era clothes, representing contemporaries of the artist. (It was common practice to work one's patrons, oneself, or other contemporary figures into historical paintings.) The interesting thing here, of course, is that the artist has placed these contemporaries on the side of the high priest, not of Christ, and their posture and expressions are just as proud and defensive as the high priest's. This is a reminder to us of our perpetual human inclination, when faced by the patient, gracious, but life-transforming person of Christ, to retreat into ourselves, into our own stubborn assurance that we've got it right and anyone who would challenge us must be wrong. (And Christians, like the high priest, can sometimes even use our own particular interpretation of the Bible as a weapon of this vain self-assurance, a defense against what Christ would do in our lives if we really let him.) This painting is a call to us to let all those vain pretensions slip away, and to actually do what none of those in the painting, because of their stubborn self-benightedness, are doing--to kneel down in the presence of the Light of the World, and to acknowledge him, and him alone, as the center of our lives.

Poesy Post: A Lament (for the First-Year Greek Student)

(Luke 1:1-2 from the Codex Basiliensis A.N.IV.2; image is in the public domain)

Back in my seminary days, I took the required classes in New Testament (Koine) Greek, and I did very well at them. I've always had a good mind for languages, but Greek was the toughest one I'd come across (even after having learned a bit of French, Sudanese Arabic, Swahili, Portuguese, and biblical Hebrew, and done brief linguistic studies of Kikinga and Ngangela). Nonetheless, I enjoyed it. But after a few years in ministry, my Greek skills had slipped a bit, and so I undertook a course of independent study in Classical Greek (somewhat more complicated than the Koine version). The goal was to see if I could bring myself back up to speed in the language while also opening a way for me to read the great works of ancient Greece in their original language. But the first few weeks back in language study were agonizing, and in the middle of the endeavor I penned this bit of doggerel, slightly hyperbolic and tongue-in-cheek, about the trials of learning Greek. Though I've come to peace with my clumsy-but-still-growing skills in Greek, and really bear no hard feelings for the language anymore, maybe some poor first-year seminary student out there can find some sympathy in these words.

A Lament (for the First-Year Greek Student)

They say that God is merciful,

They say that He is kind;

But if that’s true, then I still have

One question on my mind:

Of all the languages to choose

For His inspired scrolls,

Why did he go with ancient Greek,

A monster to behold?

Now students have to wrestle hard

Against that monster fierce,

Dressed in linguistic armor

Too indurate to pierce.

We memorize tense formatives

To find they don’t apply.

“Irregular” seems normative;

It makes me want to cry.

Athematic and deponent,

Then second aorists—

Oh, I don’t blame Augustine now

For never learning this!

Nouns change case on slightest whim,

More so than you might think;

Prepositions all look the same

And mean a thousand things.

A hundred forms for part’ciples,

Each used in twenty ways;

And words are strewn through sentences

With no order (save for case).

Perhaps God wants interpreters

Who are diligent and smart,

For those less so will never reach

The fullness of this art.

Perhaps it’s thlipsis that he wants

His servants to go through;

For after Greek no torment is

Too wretched to endure.

God grant that we who study here

May treasure still Your words,

Despite the fact they’re written in

The worst tongue in the world.

Photo of the Week: Day Lily and Rain

So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;  and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
                           - Matthew 6:28-30 (NKJV)

Quote of the Week: Olivier Clement

"To love God...is to sing his glory; or better, it is to become, ourselves, a song of glory."

- Olivier Clement, from The Roots of Christian Mysticism, p. 242

We Need More Agnostics in Church

There’s an old story told about the great 19^th-century preacher Charles Spurgeon. One day he happened to meet a fellow who proclaimed himself an avowed agnostic. Spurgeon knew that “agnostic” is Greek for “not knowing.” So he observed, “Yes. That is a Greek word, is it not? The Latin word, I think, is ignoramus.”  The joke, of course, is that while Spurgeon’s translation from Greek to Latin is accurate enough, most agnostics do not actually intend to be calling themselves ignoramuses. Whether they are or not is a topic I will not touch on today; it must be taken on a case-by-case basis.

In point of fact, though, with all due deference to Spurgeon’s witty dismissiveness, I'm going to suggest that it might not be a bad idea for us Christians to appropriate the word “agnostic” and start applying it to ourselves (at least in certain seasons of life, or in staking out positions on minor doctrinal issues). Up till now, we’ve tended to use the word to portray a final stepping-stone in a long descent toward atheism, as portrayed in this 1922 cartoon:

("The Descent of the Modernists," by E. J. Pace, from Christian Cartoons, 1922; image is in the public domain)

 

But I don’t think we should abandon our rights to “not knowing” solely to the atheists and their ilk. Rather than using “agnostic” to refer to a sort of vanilla atheist, who is too noncommittal to follow the force of his own suppositions, I think it’s a fitting word to describe what our theological humility ought to look like. In the evangelical tradition, we often give too little room for doubt, for admissions of “not knowing,” and force people to imagine their beliefs in terms of either “blessed assurance” or “lack of faith.” In even its mildest form, this unspoken prohibition on doubt can send thoughtful, science-literate Christians into an identity crisis. There are times when a Christian is demonstrating an act of great personal courage in holding out his dearest beliefs to the harsh light of possible repudiation; but to most of his fellow Christians, this act of courage will be interpreted as a failing, a weakness, or a rebellion. In most cases, it will be treated as a problem to be fixed rather than an expression of humility and intellectual honesty. This means that rather than walking with our brightest thinkers on the long road of courage and discipleship, we ostracize them and, in many cases, lose them because of our own inhospitableness to doubt. And that’s just the milder form of our prohibition on doubt. In its worst forms, it can be used to bludgeon helpless Christians into assenting to all of the fantastical, disputable, minor doctrines that their particular pastor or denomination espouses. In contrast to this, allowing space for “agnostic Christians” seems rather more like what Jesus did with his disciples: to invite people to follow him before they even knew who he was, to “come and see” (John 1:39, 46)  and explore together the journey of true doctrine.

Because of the particular road of intellectual exploration and mystical experience that I’ve walked, I feel secure in my faith in the core doctrines of Christianity (those areas addressed by the classic creeds). But there are many areas of peripheral doctrines, areas in which there are multiple possible interpretations of the biblical evidence (like eschatology, the relation of God’s sovereignty to human free will, the eternal destiny of all people, and the early history of our planet) in which I would gladly call myself agnostic. I may have particular interpretations that I lean toward, based on external evidence and the internal logic of the theological arguments; but I don’t feel the need to say that I know for certain the correct answer. And, despite the pressure in my profession to have clear and firm answers for any theological question that might get lobbed my way, I’ve come to find that being comfortable with being “agnostic,” at least in some small areas, has been for me a surprising step forward on the unending upward road towards true humility.

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves, not only in Christian doctrine but in all areas of life, that it’s okay to say “I don’t know.” Even in this age of blogging and Facebook, where there are endless forums for everyone to declare their opinions on every subject, we need to remember that it’s okay not to have an opinion on everything. It’s okay to remain open to learning further perspectives. 

But please understand that this freedom to say "I don't know" is not an excuse for intellectual laziness. Quite the opposite: it is a means by which we can journey out onto the road of God's truth and keep on pressing forward instead of getting stuck in just one tiny turn along the way. The holy mystery of the Scriptures, in all their dazzling complexity, and the broad and beautiful scope of Christian theology, with its countless variations on the single grand theme of Christ, says to me that sometimes the wisest course is simply to keep diving in, to keep pursuing the truth and submersing yourself in the dialogue of fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ from other times and other cultures, rather than merely planting your flag on a single interpretation and seeing all dissent as a battle to be fought. The truth of God on all these questions is out there (I'm not advocating a relativistic stance in any way). But on looking at the history of the Christian tradition, it seems to me that the way to get there is not by proclaiming triumphalist certainties in our own interpretations, but by taking the long road of thinking together graciously, of sharing fellowship among people of differing theological perspectives, and of allowing room for questions, for doubt, and for openness to new insights.

Over the next few weeks in my Friday posts, I’ll offer a few critiques of some of the atheist/agnostic arguments against Christianity that are commonly heard in online forums and blogs. But it seemed fitting to begin, as Christ exhorts us, not by looking at the speck in our brother’s eye, but at the log in our own.

Throwback Thursday: The Story of a Storm (and Possibly an Angel)

For "Throwback Thursday," I'm posting a story from my life, which took place in the early winter of 2000-2001 (when I was a senior at Caribou High School, in northern Maine).

("Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind," by John Everett Millais, 1892, oil on canvas; image in the public domain)

Dad and I were driving to school one morning, and we had picked up another high schooler, Megan (a girl from my youth group), along the way. Because her house was out on a back road, we were driving down an empty wooded stretch before connecting to one of the main roads into Caribou. The weather report for that day had been terrible, and already a wild wind was howling. But, as is the way in northern Maine, school almost never gets canceled by weather reports alone, but only by the weather itself. So we plugged on, watching as the wind screamed through the snow-laden woods around us. 

Then, suddenly, we saw a massive tree down ahead, blocking the entire width of the road. We stopped the car and got out to take a quick look at it. It was like stepping into a wild, strange world--the normally quiet woods around us were groaning and cracking, and tiny snowflakes were driven so hard by the wind that they felt like needlepricks on the skin. While we were standing there, on the point of deciding that we needed to turn around and drive all the way back to the other main road, a pickup truck pulled up behind us. It was a local pastor whom we knew, and he too stepped out to get a look at the fallen tree. Just then the most uncanny thing happened: a hundred yards behind us, another tall tree snapped in the wind and fell all the way across the road. We were blocked in on both sides. We stood there for a few moments, unsure of what to do, and all the while we could hear the creaking and snapping of trunks and limbs all around us. There was a sense of urgency in the air--the longer we waited, the more likely it was that another tree could snap and fall towards the car. Thankfully, though, the pastor who was trapped with us happened to have all the necessary ropes and tow cables in his pickup. So he latched on to the first tree and was able to haul it out of the road, and we were on our way again. 

The story didn’t end with that strange episode, though. By the time we got into Caribou, snow had started to fall thick and fast, and finally the school department decided to cancel school for the students, but still to have an in-service day for teachers. That meant that I, still relatively new at driving, had to drop Dad off at the school and then drive back through a howling blizzard the fifteen or so miles to Megan's house. 

The roads were treacherous, but I took it slow, and we plugged along without incident until we were within a half-mile of home. There we were stopped at the back of a small line of vehicles, unable to move forward. I stepped out of the car to see what was going on, and it was clear that an active power line was down across the road. Megan and I sat there and waited for the repair crew for at least half an hour, listening to the radio to pass the time, but there was no movement in the line. 

Finally I decided that we might be able retrace some of our route and then take the local backroads in order to loop around the fallen power line. So we turned around, and I had gotten about five miles back down the road when the car started to slide out of my control. A gust of wind howled past us, creating a complete whiteout in which I couldn’t see anything at all. All orientation was lost--for all I knew, we were about to tumble into the ditch, or into oncoming traffic on the other side. The whiteout only lasted for a couple seconds, and when it cleared and the car stopped sliding, I saw that we were miraculously still in our own lane. But it scared me enough to convince me to turn back around and wait patiently in the line of cars until the power line had been picked up. It was nearly noon by the time I got Megan and myself back to our homes, but we were safe. 

Years later, I heard Dad give an account of this same day. After we had left him at the school, he was understandably worried about us driving in those conditions. He tried to call the house a couple times during the morning, but of course I wasn’t there yet. And then, out of the blue, someone called the high school and asked to speak to him. A man’s voice, whom he did not recognize, came on and told him not to worry, that I was safe, waiting behind a downed power line. The remarkable thing was that, in looking back, I don’t recall anyone coming up to the car and talking to us or checking on us while we were there—no one, to my knowledge, even knew we were there—certainly I never asked anyone to call Dad. This is one of just a small handful of instances in my life where I'm openly willing to put forward the thought of angels as the most reasonable explanation of what happened. In any case, we all got home safe, and we also got a pretty good story to tell from it.