B: It’s slightly different and worse. He doesn’t believe the Bible is the Word of God. It isn’t a revelation from God. So what he’s saying is not that he doesn’t believe IN the Bible, but that he doesn’t believe the Bible has any special status, any special authority to tell us who or what God is or even what the truth is. The Bible isn’t sacred, set apart, or holy, perfectly pure. It has no more sacredness than the letters of any Joe Schmoe.
A: That’s weird -- really, really weird.
B: Not really. It’s “God without revelation.” That’s the title of an article I was reading about this guy’s latest book. And that’s exactly what I’ve been thinking is closer to what I think is the truth about the Bible. What this Brit means is that there is no way for us to determine to a reasonable level of confidence that the Bible is the one, sole Word of God. It might be, I guess you could say. But we can’t prove it, and, more to the point, it isn’t very likely that it is.
A: “God without revelation.” Fancy words for atheist, if you ask me.
B: No, no. This guy believes in God. Or so he says. But he just doesn’t believe that he or we can know what or who God is, for sure. The Bible gives a bunch of old guesses, inklings, about God. Ancient guesses, actually, thousands of years old. But there is no -- there CAN be no -- final answer. Those old guesses are no better than the guesses of today.
A: Kind of like he’s throwing out the whole Bible, seems to me. But wait. What the heck is up with that photo you put up with this post?B: It’s a scene from the U.P., a lawn scene. An inflatable Easter Bunny on a lawn as winter finally begins to let go up there. From a couple years back.
A: That got something to do with this topic?
B: Well, I guess it could be some kind of a revelation, in a sense. In the gray drabness of the world of a late U.P. winter comes a sign in the form of a plastic bubble of pink shaped as a bunny.
A: Very funny. So you and this joker want to throw out the Bible?
B: That’s right, in a way. Actually, what we’re doing is lowering its status.
A: To say the least.
B: But the guessing about God that the Bible’s authors did might still have some use, might still be valuable -- as valuable as anything else, I suppose. Their writings just aren’t authoritative revelations from God himself. They can be as useful as theories about God that anybody else has offered then or now or all the thousands of years in between, at any time in human history.
A: O.K., so who is this guy?
B: His name is John Caputo. But he’s not so unusual. I’m making it sound like he’s the first one to come up with this idea. It’s actually old hat. But he’s written a lot about this kind of thing. It all comes down to the belief that we just can’t determine whether God has spoken definitively, unquestionably, once and for all. Which is what so many people believe about the Bible, like you, I’m assuming?
A: You’re right about that. But how does this weirdo think he knows anything about God?
B: Well, it’s guesswork, I guess you could say. But tat’s just like the writers of the Bible. They were guessing, too. The main point is that the Bible is a collection of the guesswork of 66 authors of the ancient past. Though there might have been many more than 66.
A: I’m not into guesswork when it comes to God.
B: But you don’t have any choice in the matter. That’s one of Caputo’s points. Whether the Bible is the one definitive Word of God cannot be rationally demonstrated.
A: So he says. I believe the Bible is God’s Word.
B: There’s no rational reason to believe that. That’s really Caputo’s main point on the Bible. That’s what I started believing some years back.
A: No reason? Come on. That’s what this nut believes?
B: He’s not so unlike lots of folks. They don’t -- we don’t -- see any good reason, really, really good reasons, strongly convincing reasons, to believe that the 66 separate books that make up the collection we call the Bible, which are thousands of years old, are the Word of God, God’s speaking to humankind, once for all.
A: That’s ridiculous. How can you know anything about God without the Bible?
B: Well, Caputo believes we do the best we can. What I think is that there might be a God -- there might even be a pretty good chance that there is a God. The problem is that none of the current candidates for revelation can be shown, rationally, to really be God’s Word, a revelation from on high.
A: What the heck does this joker believe about God, then?
B: You know, that’s where he’s a little thin. It’s mostly love and justice, as I understand him from the bits and pieces I’ve read.
A: Not much different from what the Bible wants people to do.
B: But without all the doctrines.
A: Where’s all this garbage come from?
B: Caputo’s latest book is On Religion. He’s interesting. He writes like a liberal Christian but he doesn’t have ANY doctrinal beliefs. He talks in Christianish God-lingo, but "God" doesn’t signify anything firm or fixed, because nothing really is firm or fixed. He writes a lot about justice and love and being good in this world, that that’s what God wants people to try to do.
A: So what about heaven and hell and all that?
B: He thinks the idea of God has a function: to keep open the future. He even thinks that the idea of God leaves hope for the impossible: "The name of God is the name of the ever open question." That can mean just about anything, obviously. But I think Caputo is saying that there might be an afterlife where justice is served and mercy given. His main point is that we face what he calls “undecidability.” What kind of being or ground of being "God" is no one can rationally decide. He says that, "No one really knows what they love when they love their God."
A: You actually believe crap like that? You got to know that there are hundreds of Christian thinkers who could answer his every objection.
B: Yeah, I know. I read them, too. It’s a never-ending debate. But it’s been on my mind a lot lately because I saw the title of that article on Caputo’s latest book. My big conclusion, for a while, has been that it’s clear -- to me -- that there is no good rationale for believing that the 66 books we call the Bible are God’s Word, hardly any reason at all. Well, not enough of good reasons to think it’s so. So I think it’s unlikely --
A: I really don’t have time for this stuff. It’s just plain weird.
B: I thought so, too, once. But I changed my mind.
A: You should think about changing it back.
B: You know, I do that, too.
A: But you think there’s a chance there might be a God. You just said that.
B: Yeah.
A: You seem to think there might be a small chance that the Bible is His Word, right?
B: Very small, but yeah.
A: Then... should you take the risk that the Bible isn’t His word?
B: Oh, here we go! Off into Pascal’s Wager, into wagering on God in general. That’s a popular defense of belief. But I don’t want to get into that. It’s a subject for another conversation some time. I’ve given betting on God a lot of thought, too, from time to time. We’ll come back to that one.
No comments:
Post a Comment