Yesterday, I talked about William Kirkpatrick’s critique of secularism in his new book Christianity, Islam, and Atheism. Today, I want to discuss religion.
Kirkpatrick argues, and I agree, that the notion that the Qur’an is a literary masterpiece is wrong. He goes on to give many particular reasons why it is wrong (113ff.), while I say that the very idea is probably unsound. To begin with, either the Qur’an is perfectly good aesthetically, or it isn’t. If it isn’t, then there is no reason to think it came from God, so let’s assume it is. Yet, to say that such-and-such a book is perfectly good aesthetically is already to make a claim that is impossible to know. The reason is that we can never be sure that there isn’t a better one that could be produced. In general, aesthetics doesn’t give us a list of features that we would check off to see that it’s perfect. Instead, it’s all much more subjective, and even if people had the same standards for beauty, they might still disagree on whether any particular book is perfectly good. In other words, when someone describes a book in this way, I can never be sure that there could never be another that isn’t better. So, claiming that the Qur’an is a literary masterpiece doesn’t cut it for me.
Now on to weightier matters. Kirkpatrick believes that Christianity today has mostly become infested with multiculturalism, but that a vigorous Christianity such as we once had could easily defeat the threat of Islam overwhelming the West. That may be true, and if it is, I hope he is successful in getting Christians to go back to Christianity old-style. He also believes that it may be easy to convert Muslims to Christianity simply because they don’t know much about it. That may be true, also, but he is overlooking some flaws in Christianity that may or may not be relevant.
Let me begin by pointing out that at the heart of Christianity (or at least most denominations of Christianity) is a big contradiction. That contradiction is that there is someone, Christ, who is both human and divine, the contradiction being that such a being is both imperfect and perfect. Islam, by insisting that Muhammad was merely a prophet, doesn’t end up in this theological cul-de-sac, so that is a point in its favor.
Next, Kirkpatrick uses the trilemma of C.S. Lewis, that Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord, and he argues that the first two are unlikely, leaving only the third as the truth. But there is a fourth alternative: self-deceived. All of us have engaged in self-deception at one time or another. For example, we think we are judging alternatives impartially, but we aren’t because we are predisposed toward one of the alternatives and against the other, and we just can’t see it. More to the point, I knew someone in college who was convinced that he in fact was the Messiah and that the one in the New Testament was a fake. He may have been a lunatic, though he didn’t share characteristics of other lunatics I have known, and the last I heard he was a successful business consultant. In addition, Hugh Schonfield in The Passover Plot gives a credible account of how a Jewish boy in Jesus’ time could have conceived of himself as the Messiah and how Jesus had a plan to avoid death on the cross, except that it didn’t work. (His plan was to have his friends drug him so that he would appear dead when he was in fact still alive; the drug was given in plain sight, as recorded by Matthew 27:48, but it didn’t work because a Roman soldier speared him just to make sure he was dead.)
This brings us to the Resurrection, but as many have observed, the four gospels are in large agreement with one another with only minor variations until the Resurrection, when they agree on almost nothing. Since Mark, the earliest of the gospels, was written about forty years after Jesus’ crucifixion, it is hard to believe that the early Christians didn’t have a settled story on what happened when Jesus rose from the dead. What went wrong? (I have my own theory here.)
Next, let me talk about heaven. I admit that Kirkpatrick is absolutely right about how shallow the Islamic portrayal of heaven is. It does seem to be nothing but an adolescent boy’s sexual fantasy and that those virgins might be great fun for a century or so, but what about after that? But here is the problem: how is the Christian portrayal of heaven significantly better? Are we going to be doing nothing but singing songs all the time? That, too, might be fun for the first century or so, but what about after that? And as many have complained, Christianity doesn’t really give much detail about what heaven will be like. It can’t just be singing hymns praising God, can it? Basically, what we want from heaven is that it will be like earth, only better. No natural disasters, of course, and bodies that never decay and suffer no pain. (And if we can’t feel pain, we can’t be tortured.) Likewise, it would be nice if there were no annoying people around. I am thinking of people who never care what others are feeling and live for their own pleasure only.
Before moving on, let me say that there is a point that Kirkpatrick makes that I think is valid, namely that Muslims who go to heaven haven’t really improved themselves. In Christianity, one must be transformed and sanctified in order to get to heaven.
The topic of heaven brings up the question of why we are here on earth rather than in heaven. Why not just put us in heaven directly? Both Islam and Christianity see our time here as a time when we are tested. If we pass the test, we go to heaven, and if we don’t, we are sent to hell. Let me point out how unlikely this seems, if we assume that God is a good and just God. If God is good and just, then this test must be fair, but obviously it isn’t. First, a person who dies right after they are born is in no way tested, and those who die in their twenties aren’t tested to the same extent that people who make it to old age are tested. Next, both Islam and Christianity relate getting to heaven to belief in or support for specific people, Muhammad and Jesus, respectively. But obviously those who lived and died without having heard of these people then cannot make it to heaven, even though they are not responsible for the circumstances of their birth.
When confronted with these objections, Christians and Muslims dismiss them as unimportant, but they aren’t unimportant, for they show that the God they believe in isn’t a just God, but something else.
Next, let me consider the idea of prophets. It is a strange idea to me that God would use prophets. To begin with, if there are prophets sent by God, there can also be false prophets, because the temptation is so powerful to be able to say that one has received a revelation from God. How does one tell the difference? In addition, there may also be revelations sent by the devil, and again, how can one tell the difference? Does God really expect us to figure out which are genuine?
Another point against prophets is that, since God is omnipotent, He could easily send an important message to all of us at once. Why not do so? The point seems to be that God wants to test us to see if we have faith and will accept what the prophet says as God’s word, but as I have already argued, testing us is unjust. Moreover, using prophets introduces another kind of injustice, namely that those who were acquainted with these prophets had a more direct knowledge of God than those of us who merely read about them later on. And again, those who lived and died without ever having heard of these prophets are obviously in a bind with respect to hearing God’s message. And why would God neglect them? I am not a bit inclined to believe that God has sent prophets, but I admit that I would be more accepting of the idea if throughout all ages and in all lands there had been prophets who presented roughly the same message, but that didn’t happen, so I just don’t believe that God sends prophets.
All of what I am saying can be summarized by distinguishing between what I call the jealous God and the just God. Traditionalists believe in the jealous God. They believe that God created us when we were born and that we spend time here on earth being tested in various ways and after death either end up in heaven or hell, depending on our belief in God. They also believe that God intervenes in our world a great deal, and much of what they think of as sacred history tells of the times when God intervened in the past.
By contrast, the just God places us all in heaven when He created, but some of us sinned and were sent to earth for punishment. Once here, we are reincarnated endlessly until we have improved enough morally to go back to heaven. There is no intervention by God since such intervention would be against the point of our being here.
Let me go into more detail on the differences between these two approaches to God:
1. Faith. The jealous God demands that we believe and is less interested in our being good.
By contrast, the just God doesn’t care if we believe or not because what matters isn’t belief but being good.
2. Our initial place in Creation. Because the jealous God wants us to believe and wants to know that we believe, we cannot be placed in heaven initially, but must be placed in a middle region, the earth, where we will be tested to see if we have faith.
By contrast, the just God places us in heaven initially and leaves us there if we behave. If we don’t behave, we get sent to earth (or some other prison) where we are reincarnated until we improve enough to be allowed back into heaven.
3. Salvation. The jealous God saves those who believe in him and sends the rest to hell.
The just God allows those here on earth who behave morally to regain heaven and leaves the rest here on earth (or wherever) to be reincarnated until they regain heaven, too.
4. Prophets. The jealous God uses prophets to send us messages, in order to see if we accept those prophets. Unfortunately, this situation allows false prophets to arise because of the obvious advantages that being a prophet gives to one.
The just God has no use for prophets because if He wants to send us a message, He will send it to everybody at once, plus prophets are used for testing faith and the just God isn’t interested in that. Finally, prophets mean an intervention on God’s part, and the just God doesn’t do that.
5. Miracles. The jealous God uses miracles to get people to believe in him, but more often refrains from using miracles to test our faith. The result is that God becomes mysterious because we can never know if He will perform a miracle or not.
By contrast, the just God never uses miracles. We were sent here for punishment and using a miracle would lessen that punishment, thus rendering the punishment pointless. Accordingly, the just God never uses miracles, but that means that God is ultimately understandable.
6. Intervention in the world. The jealous God must intervene in the world so that people will come to believe in Him. Traditional religious texts are mostly about God’s interventions in the world, to the extent that the jealous God’s adherents know a great deal about history but not much about theology.
By contrast, the just God never intervenes in the world, because that would defeat the purpose of our being here.
7. The relationship between God and the good. In Plato’s Euthyphro, the question is asked whether God likes the good because it is good or whether the good is good because God likes it. For the jealous God, the good is good because God likes it. When God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, then that was good because God liked it, and when God countermanded the order, that was also good.
For the just God, God loves the good because it is good and accordingly would never give contradictory orders to us.
8. Rituals. The jealous God demands that we perform certain rituals to show that we believe and are willing to worship God.
By contrast, the just God never demands that we perform rituals, because He’s not interested in our believing in Him or worshiping Him. The only rituals that the just God would demand would be those that are already demanded of us by morality.
9. God’s will. For the jealous God, God’s will is all important. “Thy will be done” is a phrase frequently cited by the adherents of the jealous God. No one can oppose God’s will, though many may try. It should be clear that whatever God wills is good, as already mentioned.
By contrast, for the just God, God’s will is merely a reflection of what is good. As already mentioned, God likes the good because it is good, and so his will merely affirms what is good and does not go beyond that.
10. God’s rule. Based on the foregoing, we can make an analogy between God and earthly rulers. The jealous God is like a petty tyrant who throws tantrums, changes his mind every so often about what rules should be instituted, and most important rewards those who curry favor with him and punishes those who don’t.
By contrast, the just God is an enlightened despot who is beyond expecting his subjects to curry favor with him, but who wants the best for them and so uses the most just laws while ruling. That is to say, we know that Creation cannot be a democracy, but that doesn’t mean that God must be a petty tyrant.
11. The sacred. For the jealous God, where God has intervened becomes sacred. There are many such things that are considered sacred: sacred sites, sacred rivers, sacred mountains, sacred cities, sacred eras, sacred books, and so on.
By contrast, the just God never intervenes, so there is no reason to describe anything in this world as sacred.
12. Testing us. The jealous God must test our faith and devises many such tests.
By contrast, the just God has no interest in testing our faith because the just God doesn’t care about that. However, we are constantly being tested on our willingness to be moral because that signifies whether or not we are ready to return to heaven.
13. Why God does nothing about the evils we experience. For the jealous God, not doing anything about the evils we experience is just another way of testing us.
For the just God, not doing anything about the evils we experience is due to the punishment we are experiencing, and as already mentioned, to do something about it would relieve that punishment, rendering the punishment pointless.
14. The nature of heaven. For the jealous God, heaven will be a place for celebrating God by singing hymns to him, praising him, and so on.
For the just God, heaven will be like earth, only much better. Part of the way it will be better is that everyone there will be morally good since those who aren't have been sent to earth (or some other similar place).
These are some of the differences that I see between a jealous God and a just God. I know that many people who are traditionalists will reject what I am saying, but I just find their conception of God extremely strange and not at all like what I consider God to be. As I said above, I consider God to be an enlightened despot, not a petty tyrant. I assume that Creation encapsulates divine justice, and I just don’t see how that would work under the traditional conception of God for either Islam or Christianity.
Tomorrow: A few last comments on Kirkpatrick’s book
First, a language note...
You say "perfectly good aesthetically". When I first read this, I took "perfectly good" in the colloquial sense of "aesthetically speaking, entirely satisfactory". But you apparently meant to say "aesthetically perfect"; i.e., any change would make it less aesthetic.
Your "just-God theology" is interesting, but it seems to involve repeated reincarnation. Reincarnation is useless without some memory of your previous reincarnations, especially if you're supposed to improve in successive reincarnations. And what is supposed to be the source of the information that moral improvement will lead eventually to heaven? Are we just supposed to infer this on our own? Maybe the need to infer all these theological teachings is part of the punishment!
Posted by: Mark Spahn | 01/20/2013 at 06:26 PM
" Reincarnation is useless without some memory of your previous reincarnations, especially if you're supposed to improve in successive reincarnations."
My observations of people leads me to believe that some people right from the time they are very young understand certain moral ideas, while others don't. Where did they get that understanding? I'm assuming it was unconscious knowledge from a previous life.
"And what is supposed to be the source of the information that moral improvement will lead eventually to heaven?"
I'm starting from the premise that there is a God who is good and just. It seems to me that God isn't a jealous God since jealousy is an imperfection, and God is a perfect being. So, assuming that there is an afterlife -- and it's hard to believe that a good God wouldn't give us one -- then it's unlikely that faith is going to get us into heaven. Faith, after all, is what the jealous God wants from us, but it is not what the just God wants.
We could get there simply by grace, but that means that people who don't deserve to get into heaven would end up in heaven anyway. Either such people would be allowed to do what they want, or not. If the former, then heaven would be filled with people annoying the people who do deserve to be there, and what would be the point of heaven in that case? If the latter, then it wouldn't be heaven for them, so why allow them in at all?
So, it's not faith that gets one to heaven, and it's not grace, so it's likely to be moral improvement.
Naturally, this whole line of reasoning depends on the existence of a good and just God.
"Maybe the need to infer all these theological teachings is part of the punishment!"
I see earth as basically heaven's prison, and like prisons here on earth, it's easier to get into than out of. So, yes, figuring these things out is part of the punishment. Likewise, figuring out what the moral rules are without any divine guidance is part of the punishment, too.
Posted by: John Pepple | 01/20/2013 at 06:49 PM