Oldman,
When Joan of Arc stood before the bishops, they asked, "Do you not believe that what you call your voices from God are really nothing but your imagination? To which the illiterate nineteen-year-old peasant replied with wisdom worthy of the mystics: "Of course it is my imagination! How else does God speak to us except through our imagination?" That silenced the bishops for awhile.
An anecdote from
The Hidden Jesus: A New Life
by Donald Spoto
The remainder of this installment is contained in the enclosed document file.(It's in Word format.)
Scott
(What follows is the Enclosed Document file)
Oldman,
I wanted to try to specifically address what you have shared about relationships. To that end, I’ve inserted my feedback into the framework of your last letter. For the purposes of this post, I've set your words in italics.
Scott,
I have been trying to figure out how to respond to you for the past few days. Based on the subject of your email and the general feel of the body I assume that the big issue right for you now really concerns relationship with God rather than the validity of the Bible. Oldman, if I read you correctly, your ‘personal relationship’ with Jesus is primarily based on your interpretation of the Bible. The way it appears to me, so much of your knowledge of the personal aspects of God/Jesus are based on New Testament writings – that is, so much of your relationship with God/Jesus is ‘impersonal’(as you define impersonal below) – that I don’t see how you can distinguish between your personal relationship and Bible validity. If the Bible isn’t valid - or perhaps it would be safer to suggest that if your interpretation isn’t valid - then you probably don’t have a personal relationship. Of course, it’s presumptuous for me to make assertions about your relationship, so I’ll shift the issue back to me.
I am sure my mind isn’t capable of synthesizing all of the writings in the Bible into one harmonious whole that describes the ‘real’ God who is its main protagonist. Consequently, the God I’m interested in has an obvious appeal to – well – appeals precisely only to me. I’m clearly not that smart (or else I’d have a hell of a lot more money) so, I suppose I can have a personal relationship with ‘God’ all I want, but since I do the sharing part, and then also take care of the answering part, the wisdom I end up with looks an awful lot like my own which makes that bit about not being smart at the beginning of this ham-fisted sentence particularly poignant. That’s one of my points I guess. Even if I try with all my mind and all my heart and all my – oops, like I’ve said, I don’t have a soul – well, even if I try 100%, my relationship with God is hard to distinguish from my own thoughtful introspection. It’s perpetually disappointing to say the least. I don’t want to criticize anyone’s faith, at least I don’t think I want to, but I have to say that I think this personal relationship idea is misleading and causes many people to end up practicing magical thinking which is indistinguishable from things like voodoo or psychosis (I’d feel a lot more authoritative at this point and perhaps even strike an alpha male pose if only I had a better idea of what psychosis means). If I have assumed wrong please correct me and get me back on track.
I have not been able to come up with a better or replacement term for ‘personal relationship with God’, so let me attempt to define it for you instead. One way to divide relationship is between those that are personal and those that are not; the impersonal. I have a personal relationship with people that I directly interact with like my wife & kids, co-workers, store clerks. I have an impersonal relationship with people that I do not directly interact with. My connection with them is via some other person, organization or thing. Examples of this might include the president or governor, my insurance company or even historical characters. My personal relationships can be further divided based on the level of intimacy that we share. I am not talking here about physical intimacy but rather the sharing; who I am, my heart, my thoughts, my desires, my hurts, etc. Obviously the level of intimacy I share with my wife is much greater than with my co-workers. They in turn generally share a higher level of intimacy with me that does the store clerk that I only occasionally encounter.
So let me see if I understand how you are defining ‘personal relationship’. I’ve constructed the following table based on the information I gleaned from your letter.
To me, one problem area of this scheme is the Impersonal relationship. In particular, I take exception to the idea that connections through other persons, organizations or things are not direct interaction. For instance, you can vote for the president which will directly affect him, and he can turn around and take away your health insurance which directly affects you. You regularly give your insurance company your hard earned money, and they make a covenant with you to fix your car or pay for your doctor if you should need it (a relationship based not so much on trust these days as it is on legal contracts with lots of small, restrictive print). If relationships are based on how much we pay for them, then insurance companies may be close to the top. These examples show that there is sharing going on, so I think they need to be moved into the low-intimacy-box (Damnit, I can see that this argument is ultimately going to weaken my position). However, in the case of historical figures, I think we need to form a new category called, Absolutely No Relationship. We don’t share with historical figures. We may reach out and try to learn about George Washington, but he doesn’t return the favor. He never writes. He doesn’t send us any bills. He never even bothered to learn our names. (Ed, I hope you are not trying to be intimate with George Washington, because that’s kind of gross.) I suppose in a sense, he fought battles for you and me in a remote unanticipated kind of relationship and we are the beneficiaries of the resulting shape of America today, but any claim of relationship must be artificial and broad in the sense that, yes, we are related because we are all Homo Sapiens (or maybe posterity – he did it for posterity)
Oh yeah, the other disturbing thing about the scheme above is that while it appears you have experience existing in and recognizing personal relationships, you are somehow able to place Jesus/God in a category that is as intimate as the one you share with your wife and kids, but which shares non of the characteristics regarding direct interaction. It would seem Jesus/God ought to fit in the impersonal category. (More on this later)
I’d have to say that the key to relationships is the sharing or the interaction, regardless of whether it is direct or not (letter writing for instance), provided (and this is what I think the important part is) that it is two-way or bi-directional.
Now, I know you are probably chomping at the bit to explain how historical George Washington wasn’t resurrected - unlike Jesus who you will say is alive and interacting - but you can do that later. I still need to deal with this Bible validity issue and bi-directional interaction which seem intimately related. So try to be patient while I try my hand at putting together a revised relationship table.
* By ‘routinely’ I mean ‘in the course of day to day activities’ and not as an indication of frequency.
After giving it some thought, I’ve arranged my relationship chart around Bi-directional sharing. Intimacy in this scheme is a measure of commitment.
As you probably noticed, I’ve put Jesus in the Imaginary relationship category (Don’t freak out yet). The task I’d like to accomplish is to put him over the gap into the realm of personal and impersonal relationships, but I don’t feel justified doing so under a naturalistic model – that is, non-supernatural. Barring a sudden manifestation of psychic skills or a dramatic increase in my mystical sensitivity I’m necessarily limited to a naturalistic model owing to the limitations of my sensory organ package (even when my ability to perceive is augmented by extremely sensitive scientific instruments)(Or to put it another way, even if supernatural events occur, I have no way to perceive them).
As you probably also noticed, the examples listed in the non-imaginary relationships are a subset of the examples in the imaginary relationship. This is meant to allow for the fact that while two or more entities may indeed be in relationship, it sometimes happens that one might believe they are in love, while the other might be pondering just exactly how to break the news about filing for divorce. Or, to put it another way, while we must use our imagination to have a relationship with Harvey the Rabbit, we can also imagine elaborate relationships with actual entities who may not reciprocate or who may even be unaware that a relationship is desired. Usually, growing intimacy will test imaginary relationships and allow disparate entities to reach some sort of agreement or balance, but in the true imaginary relationship in which there is no other entity, there are no checks and balances.
The most obvious route to releasing Jesus from the realm of the imaginary relationship is to posit that he is alive and interacting. If I understand you correctly, you’ve been successful in this regard and hold to it with evident sincerity.
AN ASIDE: As an act of hope/faith, I hold that Jesus/God is somehow alive. I want this to be true though Jesus’ aliveness does not seem to be a physical aliveness like my own. I try also to interact. I try to pray. I’ve actually read the Bible, but some parts, admittedly, have been more equal to me than others and receive greater perusal. I’ve read a great deal of extra-biblical material. I mostly ask questions. I try to get the conversation started. But overall, to say that Jesus reciprocates this interest is to step over the line into imagination. At best, I can build a kind of legal case based on a particular interpretation of select writings contained in the Bible, and just like dealing with an insurance company, I could consider myself covered, but I hope you see that this returns us to the question of Biblical validity. For me to proclaim a ‘personal’ relationship with Jesus is to overstate what I HAVE in favor of what I WANT.
In general, the deeper the level of intimacy I have with a person, the better I know them; what makes them laugh, what makes them cry, what their dreams are. I know a lot about George Washington but I do not know him nor could he know me. I know quite a bit about many of my co-workers and to some extent I know them and vice-versa. Of all my human relationships, I know my wife the best. I can typically tell at a glance how she is feeling.
I can generally predict how she will respond in any given situation. And I know that I can trust her with anything. I do not doubt her.
So how does this relate to my relationship with God? First of all I would claim that it is personal. I do not have to go through some type of intermediary in order to be able to relate to him…
Here I have to take exception again. This is the part I was referring to earlier when I said it appears you understand intimate relationships, describe some of the interplay that occurs within relationships, and then proceed to explain how none of this applies to your relationship with God. It seems to me that you DO have to relate to God through an intermediary and that intermediary, for you, appears to be the Bible (perhaps the NIV version). The Bible appears to be the only source of information about God that doesn’t originate from within you/us. The written description of God in the bible, or in the writings that have been included in the bible are the source material for the perception of God as one who might be interested in an intimate relationship with some his humans. Are you aware of any others? If there are no other sources, then I think you have to agree that questions of validity become very important.
This is not to say that I’ve ignored the other avenues to relationship that you mention below, namely: Prayer; The Bible; Meditation; Other people; Circumstances. My problem with these avenues is that all of them suffer from our limited perspectives, colored by our deep desires both conscious and unconscious – perhaps even biological imperatives written into our behavior by our evolutionary histories.
I don’t mean to repeat myself over and over again, but I think it is worth looking at this idea of the individual perception of relationships. In the table above, I place our letter writing relationship in the non-imaginary category. I did this although, really, I have no evidence you exist. The news is full of incidents in cyberspace where fourteen year old girls establish chat room contacts with what they suppose are fourteen year old boys, only to find in a dramatic fashion in real-life-tragic-meetings that they have really been talking to predatory middle age men. In a way, it is liberating to discuss things on a purely abstract level because I don’t have to worry about my actions – my history – contradicting what I’m trying to say. I can present myself in an edited fashion. Sadly, the Scott you meet in these letters is likely better than the real scott. In the same way, I can only form an impression of you based on what you write. I kind of feel like I have a better picture of you than you do of me, because I’ve also seen how you interact with others in the talkorigins newsgroup. And the thing that I value in your writing is a quality I like to refer to as tone. You are a good enough writer to be able to add elements of tone, data rich embellishments, to the literal meaning of your sentences (like when you discussed all of your impressive credentials for discussing science ideas at the beginning of your creation essay.) But the essential quality to this non-imaginary impersonal relationship is that when I send a letter off into cyberspace, some time later you generate a new, unique response, regardless of whether you are a fourteen year old girl or not.
This interaction is obviously different from the response I get from Jesus. (none)
It is difficult enough to establish good relationships with real people. As I suggested above, I think there are many relationships people enter into which are not entirely understood by those who enter them. A common one seems to be marriage in which people convince themselves they are in love, but really what they are interested in is security and social standing. Our culture plays a huge role in shaping the decisions that 18–24 year olds make which is all the more obvious when we consider their decisions to commit to marriage ‘forever’ or volunteer for military service. There also seems to be great amounts of supposition by those who support evolutionary theory that our culture and our behavior are largely shaped by our genes - those us of being alive representing the successful winnowing of surviving gene combinations. Many people are driven to marriage because they feel alone or are desperately afraid of being alone. Amongst those at conservative Bible schools, I even got the feeling that some were chiefly willing to attempt marriage because it would be the only way to experience sex without guilt. Just in terms of courtship behavior, many experience an intense crush stage, only to discover later that they have simply used or been used (as their friends can attest).
My point here is to suggest that what we think or believe about a relationship bears little resemblance to the actual relationship. I am not sure how important this is. Relationships often work for a long time, even if they are screwy. But just to emphasize this point a little bit more - this discrepancy between perception and fact - I’d like to mention the placebo.
The problem as I see it is, “How do we distinguish Jesus from a placebo?” Your letter indicates that Jesus responds to you through intermediary texts that you read. This evidently is real for you. But I have tried to relate to God in this fashion, and over the years it has come to hold as much significance for me as flipping a coin. Part of it is due to continuing education. Over time, parables or other texts take on different meaning. Some see this as miraculous foresight by God to pack all that hidden meaning into a single text. I see it as opportunistic verification of my current desires. And if I don’t see it that way, I wonder if it’s because I’ve finally got it right, or if I’ve finally lost my objectivity. In any case, there are many, many Christians who are indeed practicing imaginary relationships with Jesus, no deeper than with placebos.
This brings up another issue. Since placebos work, what’s so bad about believing in placebo Jesus? In evolutionary terms, if we can better survive disease and hardship and pain through belief, then believing behavior is bound to be selected for, resulting in a key component of our species. For me, the thing that’s bad about it is that we miss the opportunity to really meet God…if that’s possible.
Another troubling question is “If you can’t tell the difference between placebo Jesus and Jesus, what does that tell us about Jesus?
I’m not a post-modernist, that is, just because I think it is difficult to interpret reality correctly doesn’t mean there isn’t, somewhere, a reality underneath all that perception. Some interpretations necessarily have to be better than others. Some theories will more closely describe reality than others. The fact that Christians have developed complex answers for why prayers aren’t answered or prophecies don’t come true indicates to me that we don’t have a good theory about Jesus yet. In fact, most of our creeds have been stagnant for seventeen hundred years now. I don’t think the preservation of tradition is faith. I think it is just plain stubbornness born of laziness.
…And of course that brings up the question of how that interaction occurs. Obviously we do not sit across the table from each other over a cup of coffee every morning.
There is no physical presence that I can see, touch or hear. My connection with God is primarily non physical. My part of the dialog is pretty easy to describe. It is primarily in the form of prayer. And the prayer is most often just in the form of conversation, sharing my thoughts and feelings about things rather than asking for stuff. I share with God things that I would never share with another person, including my feelings and doubts.
There are several ways that God responds to me. One of those is through the Bible. I can not tell you how many times he has answered specific questions and issues through something I have read. That is not limited to the Bible but it is the primary source. Meditation is another way of ‘hearing God’
speak. As I pray and dwell on specific issues oftentimes answers come to mind. And frequently those answers are not what I wanted to hear but on reflection I recognize them as being best. God can also sometimes speak to me through other people or circumstances as well. I realize these all are rather nebulous and not as satisfying as hearing an actual voice, but it is real nonetheless. And I have an assurance that no matter who I am or how well or poorly I do, that he loves me and accepts me.
What does God want from me as a person? I believe it is much more that to just be called a Christian; more than attending a church on a regular basis; more than giving 10% of my income to the church; even more than being a preacher, deacon or teacher. I believe that what God wants from me is my heart, he wants me. He wants me to put off myself and put on Jesus (Colossians 3:1-17). He wants me to be one with him (John 17:20-23). He wants me to be ‘in Christ’, an expression that is used 89 times in the NIV version of the New Testament. The majority of these occurrences are dealing with position, being contained within Christ. I believe that God’s purpose in creating this universe has been to create a people who would live with him throughout the remainder of eternity. I do not know why he chose to do that or all that that involves, but that is what the scriptures tell me.
And his desire for us, even now, is to enter into an intimate relationship with him. God loves us more than we can imagine. And I want to love him in return. That is really the basis for a personal relationship with God.
Here is my tentative schematic for relating to God. Its key feature is that I can’t. This isn’t really my idea though. I think there are various Lutheran implementations of the human God relationship that acknowledge that it is God who initiates the relationship. Lutherans sometimes call this ‘Grace’. Some Christians will say that it is up to us to make a decision. I don’t know. It seems arrogant to presume that God’s action is dependent on my decisions. On the other hand it seems difficult to understand how we could have choice if we couldn’t exercise a decision. But maybe I’m getting off track. What I set out to do this time was argue against the idea that we have ‘personal’ relationships with Jesus. At best, we have imaginary relationships with our individual conceptions of God. We are all pretty much missing the mark in this respect. For me the faith part comes from acknowledging this lack of God’s obvious presence. Faith doesn’t come from pretending to see evidence of God in every statistical anomaly. In other words, the faith part comes from the stories we tell about God, and the high hopes we have for his character and regard for us. These stories are the magic part of my faith. They are impossible stories. Yet even though they are impossible, it seems at least parts of them SHOULD be true. Faith then is acting as if these stories are true thereby introducing bits of the Kingdom of God to our world.
This schematic leaves unanswered my questions about being transformed or being empowered. Some Christians tell amazing stories and play dramatic roles in heart-warming before and after stories. But nothing I’ve witnessed or heard about really seems to transcend the capabilities of the human animal. Our best heroes turn out to be well-tuned instruments who happen to be in the right place at the right time, and whose accomplishments often continue to grow, even after they are gone.
I am not satisfied yet that this will answer your questions but I do not want to delay getting it sent any longer. So, until next time…
Oldman