Theological self-sabotage

[wynn]

Why should God being Just or Unjust affect ones investigation of Him?

If God exists His standing in this regard is irrelevant. Because God if He does exists has total control over ones eternal destination. If God does exist then one must investigate and find an appropriate response to Him irrespective of how one views Him in regard to His Justice.

It appears that like Enmos, you are missing my brilliant point (!) that what we think about our efforts affects the way we see the goal of our efforts, and that this has an impact on what effort we actually expend.

It is often said that an attitude of "I already know enough, I have already done enough" or an attitude of pride impedes learning.
And I exemplified how such an attitude has self-sabotaging implications for one's search for God.
One can start off with no particular idea about God. But certain ideas about the (in)sufficiency of one's efforts will impact how one goes about one's search and will also color the goal and its worthiness to one.

In short, if one doesn't have certainty about God, but one thinks one has already done enough to come to that certainty, then one will not make further efforts and will view God negatively, thereby seemingly justifying the lack of further effort.

 

[wynn]

I assume from the thread title and from those words, that this thread concerns a theologian who already believes in God.

No, it concerns anyone who thinks that the "issue of God" is important enough to be researched and settled. So it is actually more about atheists and agnostics than theists, although it can concern theists as well (it can happen to a proud theist that he begins to hate God).

Most of the theologians I know wouldn't feel the way you describe. They would probably assume, first off, that their knowledge and nderstanding of God will always be partial. And they would think that their ability to know God is dependent on God's will somehow. They know what God allows them to know.

(Strong) atheists are just the opposite of what you say, they fit in with the first scenario of the OP.

I suspect that most of the theologians would recognize that a big part of the problem there would lie in their own demands and expectations concerning what they are due and what God owes them.

I would say it is also a matter of common decency in being reluctant to presume one "has done everything humanly possible".

I kind of like that attitude, personally. But it doesn't really seem all that different than the first scenario. In both cases the theologian doesn't have the understanding that he/she seeks. In both cases something more remains to be done, whether by the theologian or by God, before the desired result appears.

The difference between your scenarios is that in the second situation the theologian accepts the situation and continues on with his/her work, while in the first situation there's what looks like a sense of entitlement and a condemnation of God for failure to honor it. And that seems to be an instance of a broader and more familiar theological problem. Women blame God for not giving them children, kings blame God for not giving them hegemony, merchants blame God for not making them rich...

The striking difference between the two scenarios is in the attitude and the consequences it has, as I sketched out above in my reply to Adstar.


(I have been thinking about this issue in an effort to come to peace both with my uncertainty about God, as well as with my limited willingness to apply myself to the search.)

 

[Jan Ardena]

Signal,

1. If one doesn't yet have certainty about God, but one thinks that what one has done so far to come to certainty about God, should already be enough, then one implicitly believes that God is not just and does not give spiritual insight justly.
This way, one sabotages one's own efforts to come to certainty about God, since nobody in their right mind would be interested in an unjust God.

The idea of certainty is very misleading.
One does not need to be actually certain of anything that holds
true to that person.
I am not even certain that this existence I percieve is not a dream, or projection of some sort, but I will act as if it is real. My actions are not dependant on certainty in order for me to percieve this as reality.
Within that reality, God, seems obvious to me.
The idea of being ''certain'' about something, is as you have stated before, an assertion of confidence, over and above our level playing field of acceptance. It therefore, IMO, unecessary.


jan.

 

[gmilam]

Why should God being Just or Unjust affect ones investigation of Him?

If God exists His standing in this regard is irrelevant. Because God if He does exists has total control over ones eternal destination. If God does exist then one must investigate and find an appropriate response to Him irrespective of how one views Him in regard to His Justice.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

Wow, I actually agree with adstar on something. Just or Unjust is irrelevant. (And is, of course, impossible for something that doesn't exist.)

 

[Rhaedas]

No, it concerns anyone who thinks that the "issue of God" is important enough to be researched and settled. So it is actually more about atheists and agnostics than theists, although it can concern theists as well (it can happen to a proud theist that he begins to hate God).

It also can be applied to a theist about a different religion. How many christians have researched other religions with certainty?

 

[Rav]

It also can be applied to a theist about a different religion. How many christians have researched other religions with certainty?

Why would they bother? They believe that they were lucky enough to have found the one true religion right off the bat and that a genuine exploration of other religions would be mortally dangerous.

 

[Yazata]

No, it concerns anyone who thinks that the "issue of God" is important enough to be researched and settled. So it is actually more about atheists and agnostics than theists

If that's so, then you seem to be suggesting that atheists and agnostics are really frustrated seekers after God. In the great majority of cases, I don't think that they are.

Atheists and agnostics don't believe in God. Why would they pursue what they think is a fantasy or an illusion?

Some of us are very interested in the phenomenon of religion, that's true. Some of us are even pursuing things that some might argue are cognate to the concept of "God", such as philosophical or scientific understanding. But we aren't all desperately trying to find personal religious faith as you seem to suggest.

So typically there's no bitterness towards God, because atheists and agnostics don't really expect anything from God in the first place.

(There probably are exceptions to that, particularly among former believers who have subsequently lost their faith. Some of these individuals probably do long for the comfortable certainties of their childhood and some may indeed be bitter at the God that they sense has failed them.)

although it can concern theists as well (it can happen to a proud theist that he begins to hate God).

I'd say that your scenario would be almost exclusive to theists. They are the ones who believe in God in the first place, who might therefore be seeking greater understanding or communion with this deity, and who consequently might feel frustration and bitterness at failing to achieve it.

(Strong) atheists are just the opposite of what you say, they fit in with the first scenario of the OP.

I'm not sure what a "strong" atheist is. But assuming that it refers to somebody who firmly believes that God doesn't exist, how would the situation in your first scenario ever arise? The strong atheist wouldn't be pursuing a closer something with an illuson. He or she wouldn't have any expectations about a mythological figure responding to their pursuit.

Some kind of fundamental preexisting belief in the reality of what is sought, in the existence of God, seems to be implicit in the whole situation.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Yazata,

Atheists and agnostics don't believe in God. Why would they pursue what they think is a fantasy or an illusion?

So you're saying they have no reason for thinking it is a fantasy or illusion?

But we aren't all desperately trying to find personal religious faith as you seem to suggest.

Who tries to find personal religious faith?

So typically there's no bitterness towards God, because atheists and agnostics don't really expect anything from God in the first place.

What methods do you [they] use to conclude that God is a fantasy, or an illusion?


jan.

 

[SciWriter]

…they have no reason for thinking it is a fantasy or illusion?

Belief in God is an appeal to magic, not fact, thus, delusion.

 

[YoYoPapaya]

What methods do you [they] use to conclude that God is a fantasy, or an illusion?


jan.

The same methods that are used to determine whether invisible, inaudible and intangible unicorns are running about.

 

[YoYoPapaya]

(that would be "common sense")

 

[Jan Ardena]

Belief in God is an appeal to magic, not fact, thus, delusion.

So everything that's not a fact, is an illusion?
What about facts that are yet to be discovered?

jan.

 

[Jan Ardena]

The same methods that are used to determine whether invisible, inaudible and intangible unicorns are running about.

Which is?

jan.

 

[wynn]

If that's so, then you seem to be suggesting that atheists and agnostics are really frustrated seekers after God. In the great majority of cases, I don't think that they are.

Atheists and agnostics don't believe in God. Why would they pursue what they think is a fantasy or an illusion?

For the sake of their own intellectual integrity.

One cannot just like that claim that something is a fantasy or illusion, especially not if millions of people over millenia have believed in said thing and claimed to obtain benefit from it.

But we aren't all desperately trying to find personal religious faith as you seem to suggest.
...

Some kind of fundamental preexisting belief in the reality of what is sought, in the existence of God, seems to be implicit in the whole situation.

I presume that all humans aspire to be rational agents, and that as such, they aspire to have the right/correct/adequate understanding of things, to know "how things really are", to not be in illusion or mistaken.

I think many people declare victory and certainty rather soon, as if one's own personal preferences would be the alpha and omega of all reality.

 

[wynn]

The idea of certainty is very misleading.
One does not need to be actually certain of anything that holds
true to that person.
I am not even certain that this existence I percieve is not a dream, or projection of some sort, but I will act as if it is real. My actions are not dependant on certainty in order for me to percieve this as reality.
Within that reality, God, seems obvious to me.
The idea of being ''certain'' about something, is as you have stated before, an assertion of confidence, over and above our level playing field of acceptance. It therefore, IMO, unecessary.

What do your actions depend on?

 

[wynn]

It also can be applied to a theist about a different religion. How many christians have researched other religions with certainty?

Good point.

 

[Jan Ardena]

What do your actions depend on?

I would say; on many things, but the for the moment I will
start out with my perception.

jan.

 

[Yazata]

For the sake of continuity, I'm going to begin by quoting Signal's first situation:

1. If one doesn't yet have certainty about God, but one thinks that what one has done so far to come to certainty about God, should already be enough, then one implicitly believes that God is not just and does not give spiritual insight justly.

This way, one sabotages one's own efforts to come to certainty about God, since nobody in their right mind would be interested in an unjust God.

In response to Signal subsequently saying that he thinks that this situation is most applicable to atheists and agnostics, I wrote:

If that's so, then you seem to be suggesting that atheists and agnostics are really frustrated seekers after God. In the great majority of cases, I don't think that they are.

Atheists and agnostics don't believe in God. Why would they pursue what they think is a fantasy or an illusion?

For the sake of their own intellectual integrity.

If somebody doesn't even believe in the existence of X, would we really expect them to be searching for deeper knowledge of or communion with X? Wouldn't they be more likely to think that there's nothing there to know and nothing there to have communion with?

People who don't believe in the existence of X (somewhere, deep down) aren't going to blame X and to declare X "unjust" because of their failure to know more about, to experience or to have personal communion with X. They wouldn't have expected any of those things in the first place.

One cannot just like that claim that something is a fantasy or illusion, especially not if millions of people over millenia have believed in said thing and claimed to obtain benefit from it.

Christians don't display bitterness towards Vishnu on acount of Christians failure to know, experience or have communion with that God. Christians don't pronounce Vishnu "unjust". They just shrug and say, 'Vishnu doesn't even exist, so what do you expect?' Christians are atheists with regards to Vishnu. Christians are atheists with regards to every God out there except the Hebrew Yahweh.

Well, the people that we call 'atheists' and 'agnostics' are just a bit more consistent and believe in one fewer God than the Christians. But their attitude towards the Gods that they don't believe in isn't a whole lot different.

Left to their own devices, they aren't going to be pursuing direct knowledge of or communion with any Gods that they don't believe in. But if religious believers evangelize them or try to elevate their own religious doctrines into cultural presumptions, then the atheists will probably react. Much as Christians would react if believers in different Gods tried to do the same thing to them.

 

[wynn]

If somebody doesn't even believe in the existence of X, would we really expect them to be searching for deeper knowledge of or communion with X? Wouldn't they be more likely to think that there's nothing there to know and nothing there to have communion with?

I would think that everyone would check their beliefs/convictions/stances when the opportunity arises (such as atheists and agnostics when they are confronted by a proselytizer, or Christians when confronted by a Hindu etc.).

This is simply a matter of one's intellectual integrity, and has little to do with a person's current stance on the issue, object or person in question.

If some people claim that a certain person, object or other phenomenon has or could have an impact on your life, or if your stance to said person, object or phenomenon has or could have an impact on your life - will you not research the matter before declaring it irrelevant?

For example, you hear that some people take idoine supplements because of the possibly dangerous natural iodine that could be radioactive due to the nuclear catastrophe in Japan. Do you ignore this, or do you educate yourself on the matter?

Left to their own devices, they aren't going to be pursuing direct knowledge of or communion with any Gods that they don't believe in. But if religious believers evangelize them or try to elevate their own religious doctrines into cultural presumptions, then the atheists will probably react. Much as Christians would react if believers in different Gods tried to do the same thing to them.

You seem to suggest that a person's stance on God (theist, atheist or agnostic) is immutable, set in stone.
To me, such an approach is completely foreign. To me, everything is potentially subject to scrutiny.

 

[wynn]

I would say; on many things, but the for the moment I will
start out with my perception.

And how do you deal with uncertainty? Does it not trouble you?

Are you allright with thinking about your actions something like "Allright, I hope this will work out as I planned" -?

What is your backup attitude for when things don't go your way?
And how did you arrive at that attitude, what contextualizes it?