If God exists (here I am referring to a monotheistic God) then God would necessarily be in a wholly different category from every created, materialistic thing we see and study around us. Thus, God couldn’t be studied in the same way as we study rocks, or trees, or calculus. What kind of “God” could be comprehended merely by using the same methods used to study everyday objects we can hold in our hand or under our microscope? No “God” that anyone has every believed in for very long, that’s for sure. Of course, science and philosophy and critical enquiry have an important place in the discussion of religion. But perhaps in addition to those there is more to it.

Brian McLaren put it this way:

But what if … [a certain viewpoint]’s preferred type of knowledge is not the appropriate medium of experience? … What if all forms of knowledge, which are appropriate for every single other entity in the universe, are in this one case inappropriate for “knowing” God - since an uncreated God would, by definition, be in a separate category from every created thing? What if, simply because God is in a category apart from every other thing or force or entity in the universe, another medium of experience is required, and what if this medium of experience requires faith of some sort? And what if this sort of faith is not an example of “bad faith” (i.e., make-believe, self-hypnosis, and so forth) and not an unwarranted claim of certainty, but rather an honest kind of good faith, worth of the self-investment of intelligent people, an act of integrity and humility, not escape and self-deception? (McLaren, Finding Faith, p.103)

Again, this isn’t to belittle at all the role of rational, philosophical, historical and scientific enquiry. Those methods are all important as far as they go. But instead I am suggesting that rigidly applying the same methodology used for studying mundane things would be in some sense deficient when considering divine things.

Further reading:

• Finding Faith (book) - I can’t recommend all of Brian McLaren’s books, but this one is one of the best books I’ve ever read.
• It is possible to know about God - A previous blog entry that explores this topic
• Why Bother Searching for God? - Presented by Skeptical Christian
• Jesus: Fact or Fiction? - Scholars in many different fields examine the evidence

While walking to school this afternoon, the following question popped into my head (I don’t recall the no doubt convoluted sequence of thought that led to this):

The Preamble for the United States Declaration of Independence reads, in part:
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident: that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

How would our world be different from how it is now had it read instead:
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident: that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Holiness.”?

Perhaps our society would not be so focused on personal gratification (lesser good), and instead more focused on personal sanctification (greater good)?

In modern times, what’s new is good, and what’s old is bad. At least, this is very much the case in the secularized West. How has this philosophy come about?

Technology is partially to blame. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not a luddite. I have my Bachelors of Information Systems & Human Behavior degree, and I might experience withdrawl should I be forced to go without Internet access for an extended period of time. However, I recognize that the pace of technological advancement has accelerated rapidly in the last century. It’s not quite true that computer equipment is obsolete as soon as it hits store shelves, but that’s not too far off, either. Technology has become a huge part of most people’s lives, and when it comes to technology, there’s little argument that newer is better, and this attitude toward technology has (in part) contributed to the idea that what is old is bad.

While in previous cultures tradition and history were highly valued, this is becoming less and less the case in modern culture. “Who cares about the past? We’re living for tomorrow!” is a popular (if unspoken) attitude. There’s nothing wrong with looking forward to the future, but we have become historical amnesiacs and ignore our past at our own peril.

What relevance is this to faith? Only this: The Bible is an old book. The New Testament was written nearly 2,000 years ago, and the Old Testament is even older than that. (The fact it’s got “Old” right in its name doesn’t help either.) So is this one reason why some people in the west seem less interested in faith? Could “newness” be a possible reason why some modern religions like Scientology are relatively popular, despite their untenability? Examine your own thinking … has this sort of “old is bad” mentality crept into your own life philosophy?

(BTW, for good arguments not to give credence to Scientology see Xenu.net … or view the South Park Scientology episode on YouTube … yes, it’s accurate.)

A Buddhist koan is “a story, dialog, question, or statement in the history and lore of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet that may be accessible to intuition”. One of the most famous koans is this one, as explained by Lisa and Bart Simpson:

Lisa: If a tree falls in the woods and no one’s around, does it make a sound?
Bart: Absolutely! [makes sound of a tree falling]
Lisa: But Bart, how can sound exist if there’s no one there to hear it.
Bart: Wooooooo… (thanks SNPP)

(The picture to the right is of Bart ’solving’ another popular koan, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”)

Now, with all due respect to Lisa, I think the “tree falling” koan is rationally solvable. The answer is yes, there is sound … but there is no perception of the sound. The sound itself (a “series of pressure waves”) is the result of the tree falling; our perception of it is when it enters our ear and we interpret it by the process of hearing. Could there be sound in our ear without the sound waves? No, because THAT is the ’sound’. Here’s an example: If someone slaps me, and I feel pain, the pain itself is not the slap, the pain is only the perception of the slap. The slap would still exist even if I didn’t feel the pain, for example, if I were on pain-inhibiting medication.

Furthermore, the idea that a someone must be present at an event when it occurs for it to truly have happened is ridiculous. We know trees do not (under normal circumstances) fall silently to the ground when they fall; therefore if we find evidence that the tree has fallen, we can conclude that it made a sound. Direct observation is not the only way that we can reasonably know that something is true. For example, we know historical truth by examining the historical evidence. We cannot directly observe, say, Abraham Lincoln being shot, or Columbus “discovering” North America, or even Jesus rising from the dead, but we can still be reasonably certain these historical events occurred by studying the available evidence.