{"id":6,"date":"2020-12-20T18:20:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-20T18:20:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2021-04-19T03:38:58","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T03:38:58","slug":"transactions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/permafrosthosting.com\/wp\/2020\/12\/20\/transactions\/","title":{"rendered":"Transactions"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had a short exchange with a British pastor on Twitter yesterday. He had posted a response to an atheist’s YouTube video on \u201cCould God be evil?\u201d Both videos ran through some fairly routine arguments for and against the idea: theodicy, the nature of \u201cevil,\u201d what God might be up to in \u201callowing\u201d it, and so on. Social media has plenty of that; you don\u2019t have to look very far to find it.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what was really being transacted <\/i><\/b>in that exchange? Was there a larger \u201ctruth\u201d or \u201creality\u201d being affirmed by its existence? Was there something important missing, that by not being mentioned transacted <\/i>that it was irrelevant? Was something made a harder, more definite, reality in that exchange than what \u2014 on the surface\u2014was being argued?<\/span><\/p>\n

The landscape of the modern mind is fairly \u201cGreek\u201d\u2014or as N.T. Wright posits, \u201cEpicurean.\u201d A helpful summary of the \u201cGreek\u201d way of thinking is \u201cendless comparisons\u201d or \u201ccomparing notes\u201d inside of an assumed abstract framework, a lot of subtext, \u201cwe all just know\u201d labels and terms, desirable outcomes. But those terms\u2014and even the \u201cneed\u201d to kick them around in discussion\u2014seem to be smuggling something a bit sinister in with them.<\/span><\/p>\n

American sociologist Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy was fond of pointing out the danger of abstractions. \u201cYou cannot abstract time or space,\u201d he pointed out to his students.  \u201cIf you are \u2018inside a house,\u2019 it makes a big difference whether you\u2019re in the kitchen<\/i> or the bathroom<\/i>.\u201d The point there is easy to miss. The abstraction is irrelevant to whatever you are doing<\/i> inside that house. It\u2019s almost completely beside the point.<\/span><\/p>\n

So if\/when Christian apologists argue for \u201cGod\u2019s goodness\u201d or try to rationalize theodicy, it seems to me that there\u2019s a double misdirect.<\/span><\/p>\n

A third error is possible, that we as humans are in some way capable of judging \u201cGod\u2019s goodness\u201d or His efficacy when our actions are regularly egregious (by that same assumed standard). How we as a race or as individuals can gauge allowing \u201cevil\u201d where we all comically fall short at both levels would seem to end the discussion before it starts. \u201cHow could Jewish \u2018genocide\u2019 be moral?\u201d Yet the \u201cmoral\u201d objection becomes absurd when you consider Dresden or Hiroshima\u2014wiping out entire cities. Maybe it\u2019s only \u201cmoral\u201d if you use napalm and atomic weapons. And that was only the \u201cgood guys.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The first subtle problem is almost an an a priori disposal of God\u2014the presence of historical revelation as a guide\u2014and conversely, the implicit acquiescence to gather our own straw, and then with \u201cGreek\u201d categories, to basically build Him (or simply the \u201cconsistent\u201d idea or construct) from scratch. A popular \u201cprove God\u2019s existence\u201d meme is held up as a foil to believing. \u201cYou<\/i> believe in His existence, but there\u2019s no proof; you have to \u2018prove\u2019 He exists.\u201d Sagan\u2019s \u201cExtraordinary claims require extraordinary proof\u201d might be the most famous.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what\u2019s really going on there when we chase that argument? What are we transacting<\/i> by, even for the sake of argument, accepting the premise?<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not much fun, won\u2019t play well in a dorm room with competing copies of Nietzsche, Kant, and a KJV Bible, but there\u2019s no point in accepting the premise. It invalidates our own reality: that historical revelation is valid, and that through hearing, the Spirit has moved us to belief. The instant we begin a defense with those Greek tools of the \u201cextraordinary claim\u201d we confirm that it is<\/i> \u201cextraordinary\u201d\u2014while missing the point that Sagan\u2019s assertion is in itself a claim<\/i>. The stick is thrown. Why chase it?<\/span><\/p>\n

The instances of cultural contact throughout history with a spiritual reality are too numerous to recount. The particular<\/i> Jewish backstory and their encounter with God is reasonably sound\u2014in terms of textual reliability\u2014to justify belief and that self-identifying entity’s existence. The Gospels, and early letters are too.<\/span><\/p>\n

But that same self-identifying entity is keen<\/i> to steer away from abstract description, in the end asserting \u201cI am who I am.\u201d And when questioned on His motives, responds \u201cWere you there when I laid the foundations of the world?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So what we end up transacting <\/i>when we chase the \u201cprove it\u201d assertion is a de facto denial of His self-defining character<\/i>\u2014whatever limited discussion God is willing to have on the subject. And that groundwork is tossed for some sort of game where we somehow both have standing to not take Him at his word\u2014ignore it\u2014and build Him again out of abstractions and basically make excuses for Him in the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not a good look\u2014and for the unbeliever, easy to see through, if only instinctually. Easily confused with someone who doesn\u2019t, in practice, believe it either. (harshness disclaimer: emphasis on “confused” in terms of apologists seeming<\/i> to backpedal; it’s definitely unintentional\/misidentified)<\/span><\/p>\n

The second subtle problem is a lack of self-awareness. At least in the West, given our accumulated assumptions, mannerisms, assumed sense of fairness, legal science, governmental forms. etc., an uncomprehending disconnect exists on how we function<\/i>. And most importantly, how unique that is.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Geppetto and Pinocchio, in the whale, at the bottom of the ocean, arguing whether large sea-going mammals exist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Where are we, really?<\/h2>\n

This appears in the faith\/science \u201cdebates\u201d and falls into the same trap I mentioned earlier. It\u2019s a false path\u2014it ignores the functioning power, explanatory and formative, that the Christian construct provides. I forget who said it but \u201cif we didn\u2019t have Christianity, we would have to invent it.\u201d Beginning with early Christianity\u2019s reformations in terms of the standing of women, slaves, and children\u2014running well into the Enlightenment and the solidification of our right to resistance against the State\u2014the motive force, the realities<\/i> that Christianity assumed were the fuel and direction that made the West.<\/span><\/p>\n

The list is as long as it is forgotten. The doctrine of the Trinity was lethal to emperor worship\u2014no longer was a deified man the highest human reality. Christianity drove a move from \u201cthe <\/span>polis<\/i><\/span> to the <\/span>people<\/i><\/span>\u201d during the \u201cdark\u201d ages. Pope Gregory created the practical notion of the \u201csecular\u201d in the eleventh century. Luther went on to coin the phrase \u201cprivate person.\u201d Democracy as an assumed moral construct with an assumed eschatology of peace logically followed. From the twelfth century on a parallel, more subtle, process began with the discovery of Justinian’s codexes. For several centuries, contract law, negotiable bills of exchange, distributed risk, concepts of informed consent and duress, all bubbled up from Christianity working out the legal language of the West. Science as we know it was a direct creation of that process\u2014with all of the same subtle assumptions that brought a parallel explosion of commerce and discovery.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whatever the \u201cclaims\u201d of Christianity, in the West, we live inside it,<\/i> like it or not. Whatever the claims of the Enlightenment, a close inspection reveals a trust-fund baby wealthy enough to forget its past, an effete ease of \u201cjust knowing\u201d or \u201cjust having\u201d the tools for success. It took centuries of painstaking work to not only create and develop those assumptions, and even more astonishing have them adopted and assumed<\/i> at scale<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Coming full circle, the \u201cneed\u201d to argue whether God is \u201cgood\u201d presents as little more than a game of \u201clet\u2019s pretend\u201d where the \u201cCan Spiderman beat up Aquaman?\u201d question is of no practical use. Unless the current popular atheist objections have some parallel way of generating that same advancement\u2014from Rome until now\u2014and a way of inducing those common assumptions [common Spirit] at scale, it doesn\u2019t deserve a hearing. It needs to mature and present its case rather than tugging at our pants leg and endlessly asking, \u201cBut whyyy??<\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What should be transacted<\/i> in conversation is an acknowledgement of both the genuine nature of the existing revelation and its staggering efficacy or power over time. No, God\u2019s not showing His hand\u2014sorry\u2014and Christians struggle with it too, constantly. But that\u2019s part of the deal. And He says so explicitly. <\/span><\/p>\n

Trying to reverse-engineer God by pure deduction, even for the sake of argument, is a contradictory activity where we pantomime the validity of the atheist position while essentially making excuses. Again, not a good look.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both answering seeker\/atheist objections head-on (in terms of our own thought-world) and communicating\u2014transacting<\/i>\u2014that Christianity, not pure deduction, is the space in which we exist, would not only be better, but an authentic expression of what we believe, and communicate subtextually<\/i> who we are.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a short exchange with a British pastor on Twitter yesterday. He had posted a response to an atheist’s YouTube video on \u201cCould God be evil?\u201d Both videos ran through some fairly routine arguments for and against the idea: theodicy, the nature of \u201cevil,\u201d what God might be up to in \u201callowing\u201d it, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/permafrosthosting.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/permafrosthosting.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/permafrosthosting.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/permafrosthosting.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/permafrosthosting.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/permafrosthosting.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156,"href":"https:\/\/permafrosthosting.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions\/156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/permafrosthosting.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/permafrosthosting.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/permafrosthosting.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}