Theodicy Shmeodicy

Last spring, while painting his house, a seventy-year-old man from our church fell off a ladder and seriously hurt himself. The situation reminded me of Ivan’s accident in Tolstoy's story "The Death of Ivan Illyich," so mundane as to be ridiculous. But this man (I'll call him Fred) was seriously injured—a punctured kidney, broken ribs. He was in ICU for weeks, and had to have a feeding tube installed. All because of painting his house.

It was very interesting to hear people at church discussing the situation. They thanked God that Fred was alive and that, eventually, he was well enough to leave ICU. But what about blaming God for letting Fred fall? Imagine if someone intentionally shot another person, then put a tourniquet around the wound and saved his life. Would we say, “Thank you for saving Jim’s life?” Of course not—we’d arrest him for attempted murder. Why do we let God off so easily? He gets all the credit when someone recovers (or even, in a case like Fred’s, when someone only marginally improves); but He gets none of the blame. Of course, some would argue that I'm creating a false analogy; God didn't intentionally push Fred off the ladder. Well, I suppose that depends on one's idea of God's sovereignty. But, if people don't blame God because he didn't directly hurt Fred, it seems inconsistent to credit God with Fred's (partial) recovery; God didn't directly help Fred either.

Last Sunday, Fred was well enough to come back to church. I was very curious to hear what he would say. He assured everyone that he was “a miracle.” He described his accident, blaming it on a strong gust of wind—God was noticeably absent from that part of his story. But then he went on to describe his very lengthy recovery, after weeks in a coma and after numerous operations. During all that time, he said, God was taking care of him, guiding the doctors’ hands, heeding the prayers of the faithful. He was sure that God had a purpose for him, since He had spared his life. I don’t understand how he couldn’t see the contradiction in his own attitude. Where was God when he was up on that ladder? Why does God get all the credit for guiding human ingenuity and effort (and this from a Baptist, who would insist on human free will), but no credit for guiding natural phenomena? Fred's whole experience seems to be an example of confirmation bias. Fred already believes in God, so he will ignore anything that seems to call His existence into question. Instead, he focuses on facts that seem to confirm His existence--no matter how tenuous those “facts” are.

The Book of Job Redux

After my de-conversion, I've been reading the Bible with new eyes. Recently, I re-read the book of Job and found it really disturbing. In a moment of "inspiration," I wrote this version, to highlight what bothered me about the book.

Allegory of the insecure father

Once a father was sitting on a park bench, watching his 7-year-old son play. The father was very proud of his son, who was obedient and always tried to please his father as best he could.

An acquaintance of the father came up and sat down beside him.

“What have you been up to?” asked the father.

“Just wandering around,” replied the other.

“Well, have you noticed my son? Isn’t he a good boy?”

“Perhaps. But, to be honest, I think he’s only good because you’re so nice to him. You always take care of him and give him everything he needs. I bet that, if thing’s weren’t going so well for him, he wouldn’t be such a good boy.”

“Fine," replied the father. "Do whatever you want to him, and we’ll see what happens. I’ll bet you he’ll still be a good boy.”

So, while the father sat watching, the acquaintance walked over to the boy and smashed all his toys. The boy had been playing with a puppy; the man took it and wrung its neck. Finally, he kicked and punched the boy repeatedly, leaving him bruised and bloody.

The little boy ran crying to his father, “Daddy, you saw what that man was doing—why didn’t you stop him? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Be quiet!” the father replied sternly. “I’m bigger and stronger than you, and I’ve been alive much longer. You’ve got no right to question me!”

The boy lowered his head. “You’re right,” he said softly. “I’m small and weak compared to you.”

The father was so pleased that he bought the boy some even better toys, and he gave him a new puppy for his pet.

Would you call this man a kind and loving father?

Why "Cold Souls" left me cold

I recently rented the movie Cold Souls. I usually enjoy that kind of Kaufmanesque film, but not this time, which got me thinking. I eventually decided the problem was that the filmmakers were confused about how having no soul would affect a person. In the film, the soul isn’t the same thing as the mind, because Paul (the main character) is still intellectually competent after his operation. Instead, the writers seem to equate the soul with emotion. Paul’s feelings are altered by the operation. But even then, the film is inconsistent; Paul doesn't suffer from complete loss of affect. (For example, he worries about being soulless.)

Unintentionally, the film reveals that modern cognitive science has rendered the whole notion of a soul superfluous. If the soul isn’t thought, or feeling, or personality, what is it?

Everyone admits that thoughts and feelings come from the physical brain. Ritalin doesn’t help the soul to focus better. And even Christians take anti-depressants; they don’t believe that they’re medicating their souls. Increasingly, the functions of the soul have been replaced by the chemistry of the brain.

People also admit that personality is a function of the brain; look at all the ways that changes to the brain (strokes, injuries, drugs, etc.) alter personality. Does that mean that the immortal soul has no individual personality? If so, why would somebody even hope for a bland, thoughtless, emotionless, soul with no recognizable personality? What exactly is it that is supposed to walk through the pearly gates?

Modern science has forced God to become what Bonhoeffer referred to as the God of the gaps. The soul, likewise, has become the Organ of the gaps. But, in the case of the soul, there is no discernible gap left for it to fill. Descartes found the seat of the soul in the tiny pineal gland. But I don’t think there’s a gland small enough to do what the soul does—nothing. It's the ultimate vestigial organ.

Losing My Religion

I grew up in the baptist church. I've played the organ in church for thirty years. But, somehow, I seem to have become an atheist malgre lui, or at least a strong agnostic. The process has been long and slow. Since I'm still the church organist, I don't really feel free to discuss these changes with my friends in church. That's why I'm writing all of this here. 

Looking back over my life, I can see how I arrived here. (But I always worry about the bias of distorting my own memories to fit my current self-image.) As a child, I never had any kind of deep religious feeling. I walked down the aisle and “got saved” because I felt pressure from my parents and because I felt guilty about my own sinfulness. I remember lying on the couch that Sunday afternoon, hearing the neighbors mowing their lawns, and thinking that nothing felt any different, that I was still the exact same person that I was before. I’ve always envied the Pauls of the world—those who are radically transformed by a salvation experience. (Although, if I think about it, Paul wasn’t really that different afterwards. He went from being an inflexible Jewish ideologue to being an inflexible Christian ideologue.)

In high school, I was outwardly religious, but I didn’t really think deeply about religion. I do remember scandalizing my cousin by saying that I didn’t believe in angels. I thought that, if God was omnipotent and omnipresent, why did he need minions to fly around and deliver his divine messages?

In college, I was more of a New Age/Thoreau/Transcendentalist than an orthodox Christian. I’ve found some writings from that time that show that, at least sometimes, I didn’t feel the Bible had any more authority than, say, the Baghavad Gita.
During graduate school, I seem to have been at my most orthodox. I now cringe with shame when I remember trying to convince students in my classes that Darwinism wasn’t proven, that evolution was just a theory. Reading Derrida and other deconstructionists made a profound impression on me, as did reading Hume’s radical skepticism. I remember telling a friend that skepticism was the only true philosophy, that Christianity required a leap of faith (Kierkegaard’s Sickness Unto Death had also impressed me—I started reading scripture more critically afterward). The friend insisted that there was evidence for belief, but I wasn’t convinced.

The cracks in my faith continued to widen as I started reading science books in earnest. The one I remember as having the biggest impact on me was The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins. The more I read, the more the universe started to make more sense without a God than with one. In River Out of Eden, Dawkins was discussing religious leaders who were trying to understand a bus accident that killed many children. The leaders were making their vain attempts at a theodicy. But Dawkins said that the universe looks exactly as it would if there were no God:

Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in intention. It would manifest no intentions of any kind. In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, others are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. (132-133)

That's where I stand now. The real problem at this point is how to "come out" to my baptist friends. I still care deeply about them, and I don't want to hurt them. But I just can't believe the same things they believe any more.