Faith in God's Will
Get Thee Behind Me Satan!
'And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, 33 saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. 34 And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.” '(Mk 10:32-34)
I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. (Is 50:7)
I just have to note something further about the picture and caption -- I don't think there's anyone in history who had more faith in God's divine plan than Jesus. I know he had all sorts of powers and the crowds were following him wherever he went, and that he was immensely popular among some sectors, but his ministry wasn't all success -- he was rejected many times, even by his family (Mk 3:21), who thought he was crazy, and people of his hometown; people had attempted to stone him; even though he did such great miracles people still wouldn't believe, they just wanted free food (Jn 6:26); the religious establishment was against him; when he was arrested, all his disciples abandoned him and he didn't have even a single friend left, these disciples that he had spent the past 3 years with carefully teaching but they still didn't understand; then he ended up being killed and everyone thought it was the end; people no doubt thought he had gone down in the pages of history as the ultimate loser, except for the fact that he'd be forgotten in obscurity before even that could happen -- and they did all this even though he was the Son of God and had shown them the wisdom and power of God. Read the gospels carefully, not taking anything for granted, and you'll see just how strong Jesus' determination was, because of his faith in his Father's will. Even though he's God and we expect nothing less from God, I'm still amazed. Look at the man go!
Ps 34:9 "... those who fear him have no lack." Isn't this the central question of faith? Even Satan said "Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have
blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land." (Jb 1:9-10) And Solomon said, "Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil." (Eccl 8:11.) If those who feared God really had no lack, then everyone would fear God, yes? And if the sentence against evil was executed speedily, no one would do evil. But would this be true faith? Why do we live in a world where moral effect doesn't necessarily follow moral cause? (This question is also found under "Good & Evil/Pain & Suffering".)
Jesus often said to those he healed, “Your faith has made you well.” But if they had faith, what need did they have for Jesus? Couldn’t they just pray to God on their own and be healed? Seems they didn’t have enough faith for that. They went out of their way to seek Jesus out in order that they might be healed.
Hmm. You could say that they had faith in Jesus, but no faith in their own power of prayer. OK, but what difference does it make? While you could say that faith in Jesus is easier to maintain than faith in praying for oneself, and I'm willing to grant that, who says that faith in Jesus is more effective than just having faith in prayer? After all, Jesus said that if we have even faith the size of a mustard seed, we can move mountains. Not that faith can really be measured in physical terms, but his point was that faith is something you either have or you don't. If therefore these people had enough faith to enable Jesus to heal them, why did they not have this ability in themselves?
If the believers of Tyre had told Paul not to go to Jerusalem, and if they said this through the Spirit, why did Paul say that it was the will of the Spirit that he go? (Acts 21:3-4, 13-14) So we see an apparent contradiction here.
Why did the father of the boy with the demon say that he believed and didn’t believe? (Mk 9:24)
Doesn't make much sense at all, but I think we can all relate. Actually, this question is very similar to the one above the previous. Here, the father has enough faith to bring his boy to Jesus for help, but not enough faith that he can pray for his own boy's recovery, or even for the disciples to heal his boy. So it's true what the father was saying of himself -- that he both believed and didn't. The amazing thing here is that God can work with the little faith we have. It kind of reminds me of this story -- which I've mentioned before on this website and which you'll probably think I'm very fond of bringing up -- of the woman who had such little faith in her own power of self-control that she froze her credit card in a block of ice. That way, she couldn't make any impulse purchases. She would have to think about it first, while the block of ice was melting away. So she didn't have enough self-control on her spending to have full access to her credit card, but at least she had enough self-control to make it harder for her to get a hold of her credit card. The block of ice was like her "bridge" to self-control, since she couldn't get there by herself. This was smart of her, because she was able to "stretch" what little self-control she did have and make it get her to where she wanted to be. Likewise with the father here. He couldn't get all the way to a cure for his boy all by himself, but at least he knew enough to bring his boy to Jesus, who he believed could get him and his boy all the way over.
Now what's the difference between Asa seeking help from physicians and not God, and his building of fortresses even though and because the Lord had given them peace? (II Chr 14:6-7, 16:12)
To what extent are we to trust in the Lord? In one case, God condemned Asa because he trusted in the doctors and not God. In another, Hezekiah built up the military but trusted in God (question: If God’s going to take care of everything, why waste time, effort and resources building up an army?) Now which way to follow? These two ways seem incompatible. (II Chr 16:12, II Chr 32:1-8)
Hmm. This is another one of those "Christian balance" questions (which all comes down to the UQ, this tension between dichotomies). We're always supposed to depend on God -- this isn't a matter of how much we should depend on ourselves or on God. The question is how do we go about this? At what point do we draw the line and say we've gone over it into self-dependence? For example, are we to assume from this that it's always bad to go to the doctor? Actually, there's people out there who draw this exact conclusion. I'm sure we've all heard of stories of very religious, and very misguided people, who shunned any kind of professional medical help for this exact reason. And we know that the fallout from this was tragic and stupid. It's too bad that these people can't strike the proper balance between making wise use of available resources, and trusting in God's care.
It's also interesting that there's this human tendency to draw the line like this, at the point where you have to go seek medical help. I mean, do you depend on God so much to cook you your breakfast that you refuse to do it yourself? Nobody goes to that extent. Everyone knows that you better cook your breakfast yourself. In fact, I bet a lot of these same misguided religious people would call it presumption against God to expect him to cook your breakfast for you. Not that he couldn't do this -- in fact, the gospels tell a story of Jesus cooking breakfast for his disciples -- but I don't think it was everyday! So we have a spectrum here, and a lot of people are confused about where to draw the line, and I'm sure that this doesn't just apply to what up til this point I've called "misguided religious people" -- any Christian knows that there comes times of discernment when we're genuinely unsure of what God expects of us and what we can expect from God.
Then there's the materialist atheists who go in the opposite extreme and deny that God is involved in the universe in any way, shape or form. It's like this one story I read (and which I guess is pretty popular) about an old woman who needed groceries but couldn't afford them. She prayed out loud to God for help, and it happened that an atheist heard her and wanted to prove to her that God doesn't exist and that no one had heard her prayer, so he got her groceries and left them on her doorstep. She opened her door and saw a bag of groceries there and praised the Lord in a loud voice for answering her prayer. Then her neighbor jumped out of his hiding spot and said, "Ha! You see, God doesn't exist! I was the one who got you those groceries!" But the old lady just praised the Lord even louder. Of course, this is just an urban legend, but it's a good illustration of how the thinking of atheists completely divorces the possibility of the supernatural from, well, everything.
Oddly enough, I think religious people can make the same mistake, but in the opposite direction, as illustrated by this urban legend: an old woman gets stranded because of a flood, and she prays to God to save her. Someone comes by in a rowboat and offers to let her in. She refuses, saying she'll trust in God. Then a rescue team in a motorboat comes by and tells her to get in. She refuses, saying that God will save her. A helicopter comes by and they let down a ladder for her to climb up, but she refuses, saying that she's waiting for God. The woman ends up drowning. When she gets to the pearly gates to be judged by God, she asks, "God, why didn't you save me? Why'd you let me drown like that?" And God says, "I sent you a rowboat, a motorboat and a helicopter. What else did you want?" At this point, I think the woman must have said, "Oh." This story's very similar to the real life example I gave above of people refusing medical treatment, but because it's very similar to the story directly above, I thought it'd be easier to see the similarity between them, but in a mirror-image way.
They're good illustrations of the contrast and identicalness of materialism and idealism, and how though they go different routes, they end up in the same place. In the grocery story, the atheist thinks he's being sneaky by "pushing God out of the way" and getting the groceries for the old lady free of God's help. So he doesn't believe in God and therefore thinks God is no where behind the scenes, even behind the atheist's own actions. In the flood rescue story, the old lady purports to be a believer in God, and in fact, believes so strongly that she can refuse all the help that comes her way, not realizing, like the atheist, that God works behind the scenes.
As extreme and ridiculous as these stories are, I've read of and seen for myself many people who think like this. I'm sure we've all come across atheists who absolutely refuse to believe in God unless God were to show up right in front of them. By this I mean he's got to come out in all his divine glory, like with a halo and be super bright and such, whatever it is that they're expecting. Coming like Jesus doesn't count. Even if you do a bunch of miracles. It's not good enough. You have to look like God, possibly even be accompanied by a symphony of angelic singing. Of course, Jesus did appear like this on two separate occasions (the transfiguration and his birth announcement to the shepherds), but other than that, he looked really normal and boring. And as far as we can tell from the gospels, he sounded really normal too. It doesn't say that he used some kind of awesome God-voice where everyone could tell right away that he was God. But even here, almost as if to placate the naysayers, God (the Father) did in fact show up and rumble in his awesome God-voice (Jn 12:28-30). So either way, they really had no excuse. As a side note, it seems to me that the real reason atheists make these kinds of preposterous demands is because they know they're preposterous. By demanding what they know is (almost certainly) not going to happen, they think they have the right to then shove aside any other kind of evidence for the existence of God.
Now going back to the main thread, I think a lot of "trust in the Lord" is actually an excuse for laziness and irresponsibility. I once heard of a guy who said he didn't vote because he believed that the results of elections were in the hands of God. This is absolved him of his civic duty. Actually, it's a privilege, but you should think of it as your duty. But you know, voting takes a long time. I mean, if you do it responsibly and actually put in the long hours of research. This is something most people aren't willing to do, especially when everyone claims to be so busy. So this guy came up with a real convenient excuse for excusing himself from the polls. But what if every Christian thought like this? Then none of the Christians would vote and Christian values would quickly disappear from the political arena. And then are we supposed to blame God? Well, that's also really convenient.
I can think of another example of this sort of sloppy thinking, and to the shame of Christians everywhere, I think it betrays just how common it is among them to "overspiritualize" everything, which is another way of saying oversimplify everything, always having ready cookie-cutter answers for every issue that's too painful or too hard to solve. I was once talking with a Christian about how Christian women are going to have a hard time finding a Christian spouse, because of the gender imbalance (skewed towards females) in the church in most countries. In case you don't already know, Christians generally frown upon marrying non-Christians. In fact, among a lot of Protestant evangelicals, it's looked at as a sin and is strictly forbidden. While I also highly encourage preferring a Christian spouse for Christians, I realize that this just isn't always possible. However, this person wouldn't listen to sense. Their reply? "God can take care of it." Take care of it? How? I objected. I said, "This is exactly the problem with Christians. It's a simple mathematical fact that there's not enough men to go around for all the Christian women, and they expect God to 'take care of it'". At this, my interlocutor seemed a little sheepish and tried to back down, realizing that I was right, that this is a much more complex question than can be waved away with "God will take care of it." In any case, breaking this down philosophically, as I said above, a lot of Christians are very happy to leave everything to God and not do anything to figure things out with the brains he gave us. It's sloppy thinking skewed towards philosophical idealism (overspiritualizing), as opposed to the other example I gave of materialists overphysicalizing everything and demanding that God show up in some kind of visual/physical/tangible way right in front of them. Neither the overspiritualizer nor the overphysicalizer is willing to think. The overspiritualizer thinks they're being pious by saying things like "Just have faith," and "It's because of the devil", rather than really thinking through the tough issues of life. The overphysicalizer is unwilling to seriously consider any kind of argument or evidence for the existence of God, a Creator or Redeemer, etc, basically saying they can't believe because they can't see God, that is, in the same way they can see you or me.
So let's get back to King Asa. I don't have any problem with him building fortresses and trusting in the Lord. That sounds smart. But what about trusting in physicians rather than the Lord? I think this is possible, although it's also possible to rely on doctors for medical help and also trust in God. So what does it mean to not trust in God?
The most obvious thing that comes to mind is disobeying God because you think this will be to your advantage, or because you think it'll help you avoid some trouble you're afraid of getting into. First of all, disobeying God will never be to your advantage, and this is true even if it's true that you'll wind up in some kind of trouble for following God. A lot of corruption in government and business and the Church, comes from bad apples higher up whom everyone is afraid of confronting, because they're afraid they're going to lose their job. Keeping mum is an obvious sign that you care more about keeping your job than being true to God. It also means that you fear your higher ups more than you fear God, which is insane. Not only should you not fear your higher ups more than God, you shouldn't even fear them at all.
Another sign is not necessarily doing or failing to do a particular action, but having an attitude of distrust -- fear and worry. However, fear and worry are the things that lead to concrete actions (or nonaction) of disobedience.
Another sign is being a control freak. You're worried or even convinced that if you don't take care of every possibility and eventuality, that you'll get screwed over. This could lead to you being a pushy, neurotic person, and probably not very relaxed. It's also not hard to see how this could lead to you doing something seriously disobedient.
At the very least, if faithlessness doesn't lead to you causing problems for yourself (which was the very thing you were seeking to avoid), it's at least very unpleasant to live life like this. Taking care of yourself on a God-level of control is going to lead to a lot of stress and frazzled nerves. It's much better to relax and rest in God. This doesn't mean you don't try your best -- of course that's a requirement to always do your best whatever you decide to do (Eccl 9:10) -- but the attitude behind this will determine in what spirit you're acting -- in God or outside of him? This in turn will determine what course of action you decide to take and what the larger outcome will be of each episode of your life and the whole of your life.
Why would Jesus praise the poor widow for giving up her two coins when that was all she had to live on? Shouldn’t a person take responsibility for their own support? Where did she expect to get the money to do so if she gave away what little she had? (Lk 21:2-4)
Though Jesus praises her, I find it hard to do so myself, for the above reasons. The only way I can really justify such an action is if she had so little it wouldn't have made any difference whether she kept her 2 coins or not. On top of all this, I don't see who could make better use of her money than she herself, since she was on the bottom rung of the social ladder. I guess as long as this lady didn't become a burden to anyone else, it's fine however much money she wanted to give away. But I have a hard time believing that God would take care of this lady given that she was poor in the first place, so apparently God wasn't taking care of all her needs.
I was reading in the Philokalia (I forget where, and as of right now I'm too lazy to go look it up) the writings of some monk who was speaking against keeping anything at all for oneself, even one's living expenses, when giving up the layperson lifestyle. Monks aren't supposed to own anything and to live in poverty, surviving off of the bare essentials, and perhaps not even that depending on their zealousness for asceticism. For laypeople, it's OK to have savings and to look after your future from your own private resources. Personally, I find nothing wrong with the lay lifestyle. It sounds sensible, and even the bible commends this kind of financial prudence. Then you have the monk mentality, where holding onto any kind of materiality or possession is seen as reprehensible. On the other hand, it's true that the monk displays a radical dependence on the provision of God, which also sounds like a good thing to me. So there's this tension here, and this is very similar to the question above (about King Asa), except this is getting more specific, and I think it hits closer to home. Like the question above, I don't see why you can't trust in God either way, whether you're a layperson or a monk. Though a layperson saves for the future and stocks up for the rainy day, even the layperson must realize that all things come from God, that money comes and goes and can't be trusted, and that God is where we ultimately get our sustenance from. Despite this, I can see how the monk's training in trust in the provision of God is much more "rigorous". Questions of whether you'll be able to eat potentially crop up everyday. This could still be true of the poor layperson, but for many laypeople, this sort of question only arises occasionally. That's when God tests them to see if they truly trust in him or whether they were trusting in their savings or job stability or the prosperity of their business.
So could the widow have held onto her 2 coins and still found approval in God's eyes? Possibly. If a poor person holds onto the last of their cash because they need it for their living expenses, I see nothing wrong with that. If this same poor person gives the last of their cash to charity, especially to someone poorer than themself, surely that's a very generous act and displays outstanding trust in God's provision. At the same time, I'm not sure if I would call it prudent. That's all I can say about this. It's another one of those "Christian balance" questions and I can't say I've attained the wisdom to teach others exactly where to strike the balance.
In James, it sounds so easy to be healed, so long as you have faith, but how is this so, seeing that Paul prayed for the thorn in his flesh, but it didn’t go away? (Jas 5:14-16, II Cor 12:7-8) (see also Good & Evil/Pain & Suffering) In other words, how do we know we have enough faith? And is it possible to expect too much? Jesus said, "... these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Mk 16:17-18) And elsewhere, though Jesus addresses the following words to the 72* when he was sending them out (therefore some would make the argument that they apply only to those 72 and not all Christians), they still ring very similar: "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons." (Mt 10:8) (*Although technically this passage refers to the 12, I personally think that this is the same mission of the 72 mentioned in Lk 10.) While I would agree that if you go to a church that never sees miracles, that could be a bad sign, I definitely don't feel comfortable going around claiming that I can heal people, and I think the number of people who can rightfully claim this is so miniscule as to make me wonder if we haven't really grabbed hold of the power of the Holy Spirit.
How come Jeremiah didn’t know that it was the word of the Lord that had come to him concerning the field in Anathoth until the word came true? (Jer 31:6-8) Aren't we supposed to have more faith than that? This is actually very similar to the question directly above. If you're going to claim you can heal someone, you very well be 100% confident that it's going to happen. 99% sure really isn't good enough. However, it takes tremendous faith to get up to 100% certainty. Likewise, it seems like Jeremiah wasn't 100% certain until the prophecy came true.
Well, then, since we're on it, why don't we talk about faith and what I'll call "it-could-all-be-otherwise", which I'll shorten to ICABO, which I suppose is just a fancy way of saying "doubt", but I mean a certain kind of doubt. I'll illustrate by example. I don't believe that AI, or what is commonly called GOFAI (good old-fashioned AI) is possible. I'm talking about the kind of AI you see in sci-fi movies, the kind of AI that could pass any kind of AI test with flying colors. Then why, whenever I see an article claiming to make some kind of amazing progress in AI (and specifically of the GOFAI type), do I always read it? I read it to check and make sure that my belief, or rather non-belief in AI, is true. So far, I haven't come across any true example of GOFAI, of which I'm not surprised. After all, as a Christian and as a dualist, I don't think creating the equivalent of a human soul, what AIers would call a "mind", is possible. Possible for God, but certainly not for us. These people (and I think they must all be atheistic materialists) think that the mind is just the brain, which is physical, and therefore, it stands to reason that if you could just replicate the physical structure of the brain, you could turn on the electricity and voila! -- a full-fledged mind, GOFAI. Me, I think even if you could replicate a human brain exactly and turned on the switch, you'd probably get a really nice computer, but nothing else -- no real thinking, no real feeling, no life -- nothing, no one would be there.
Ps 34:9 "... those who fear him have no lack." Isn't this the central question of faith? Even Satan said "Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have
blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land." (Jb 1:9-10) And Solomon said, "Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil." (Eccl 8:11.) If those who feared God really had no lack, then everyone would fear God, yes? And if the sentence against evil was executed speedily, no one would do evil. But would this be true faith? Why do we live in a world where moral effect doesn't necessarily follow moral cause? (This question is also found under "Good & Evil/Pain & Suffering".)
Jesus often said to those he healed, “Your faith has made you well.” But if they had faith, what need did they have for Jesus? Couldn’t they just pray to God on their own and be healed? Seems they didn’t have enough faith for that. They went out of their way to seek Jesus out in order that they might be healed.
Hmm. You could say that they had faith in Jesus, but no faith in their own power of prayer. OK, but what difference does it make? While you could say that faith in Jesus is easier to maintain than faith in praying for oneself, and I'm willing to grant that, who says that faith in Jesus is more effective than just having faith in prayer? After all, Jesus said that if we have even faith the size of a mustard seed, we can move mountains. Not that faith can really be measured in physical terms, but his point was that faith is something you either have or you don't. If therefore these people had enough faith to enable Jesus to heal them, why did they not have this ability in themselves?
If the believers of Tyre had told Paul not to go to Jerusalem, and if they said this through the Spirit, why did Paul say that it was the will of the Spirit that he go? (Acts 21:3-4, 13-14) So we see an apparent contradiction here.
Why did the father of the boy with the demon say that he believed and didn’t believe? (Mk 9:24)
Doesn't make much sense at all, but I think we can all relate. Actually, this question is very similar to the one above the previous. Here, the father has enough faith to bring his boy to Jesus for help, but not enough faith that he can pray for his own boy's recovery, or even for the disciples to heal his boy. So it's true what the father was saying of himself -- that he both believed and didn't. The amazing thing here is that God can work with the little faith we have. It kind of reminds me of this story -- which I've mentioned before on this website and which you'll probably think I'm very fond of bringing up -- of the woman who had such little faith in her own power of self-control that she froze her credit card in a block of ice. That way, she couldn't make any impulse purchases. She would have to think about it first, while the block of ice was melting away. So she didn't have enough self-control on her spending to have full access to her credit card, but at least she had enough self-control to make it harder for her to get a hold of her credit card. The block of ice was like her "bridge" to self-control, since she couldn't get there by herself. This was smart of her, because she was able to "stretch" what little self-control she did have and make it get her to where she wanted to be. Likewise with the father here. He couldn't get all the way to a cure for his boy all by himself, but at least he knew enough to bring his boy to Jesus, who he believed could get him and his boy all the way over.
Now what's the difference between Asa seeking help from physicians and not God, and his building of fortresses even though and because the Lord had given them peace? (II Chr 14:6-7, 16:12)
To what extent are we to trust in the Lord? In one case, God condemned Asa because he trusted in the doctors and not God. In another, Hezekiah built up the military but trusted in God (question: If God’s going to take care of everything, why waste time, effort and resources building up an army?) Now which way to follow? These two ways seem incompatible. (II Chr 16:12, II Chr 32:1-8)
Hmm. This is another one of those "Christian balance" questions (which all comes down to the UQ, this tension between dichotomies). We're always supposed to depend on God -- this isn't a matter of how much we should depend on ourselves or on God. The question is how do we go about this? At what point do we draw the line and say we've gone over it into self-dependence? For example, are we to assume from this that it's always bad to go to the doctor? Actually, there's people out there who draw this exact conclusion. I'm sure we've all heard of stories of very religious, and very misguided people, who shunned any kind of professional medical help for this exact reason. And we know that the fallout from this was tragic and stupid. It's too bad that these people can't strike the proper balance between making wise use of available resources, and trusting in God's care.
It's also interesting that there's this human tendency to draw the line like this, at the point where you have to go seek medical help. I mean, do you depend on God so much to cook you your breakfast that you refuse to do it yourself? Nobody goes to that extent. Everyone knows that you better cook your breakfast yourself. In fact, I bet a lot of these same misguided religious people would call it presumption against God to expect him to cook your breakfast for you. Not that he couldn't do this -- in fact, the gospels tell a story of Jesus cooking breakfast for his disciples -- but I don't think it was everyday! So we have a spectrum here, and a lot of people are confused about where to draw the line, and I'm sure that this doesn't just apply to what up til this point I've called "misguided religious people" -- any Christian knows that there comes times of discernment when we're genuinely unsure of what God expects of us and what we can expect from God.
Then there's the materialist atheists who go in the opposite extreme and deny that God is involved in the universe in any way, shape or form. It's like this one story I read (and which I guess is pretty popular) about an old woman who needed groceries but couldn't afford them. She prayed out loud to God for help, and it happened that an atheist heard her and wanted to prove to her that God doesn't exist and that no one had heard her prayer, so he got her groceries and left them on her doorstep. She opened her door and saw a bag of groceries there and praised the Lord in a loud voice for answering her prayer. Then her neighbor jumped out of his hiding spot and said, "Ha! You see, God doesn't exist! I was the one who got you those groceries!" But the old lady just praised the Lord even louder. Of course, this is just an urban legend, but it's a good illustration of how the thinking of atheists completely divorces the possibility of the supernatural from, well, everything.
Oddly enough, I think religious people can make the same mistake, but in the opposite direction, as illustrated by this urban legend: an old woman gets stranded because of a flood, and she prays to God to save her. Someone comes by in a rowboat and offers to let her in. She refuses, saying she'll trust in God. Then a rescue team in a motorboat comes by and tells her to get in. She refuses, saying that God will save her. A helicopter comes by and they let down a ladder for her to climb up, but she refuses, saying that she's waiting for God. The woman ends up drowning. When she gets to the pearly gates to be judged by God, she asks, "God, why didn't you save me? Why'd you let me drown like that?" And God says, "I sent you a rowboat, a motorboat and a helicopter. What else did you want?" At this point, I think the woman must have said, "Oh." This story's very similar to the real life example I gave above of people refusing medical treatment, but because it's very similar to the story directly above, I thought it'd be easier to see the similarity between them, but in a mirror-image way.
They're good illustrations of the contrast and identicalness of materialism and idealism, and how though they go different routes, they end up in the same place. In the grocery story, the atheist thinks he's being sneaky by "pushing God out of the way" and getting the groceries for the old lady free of God's help. So he doesn't believe in God and therefore thinks God is no where behind the scenes, even behind the atheist's own actions. In the flood rescue story, the old lady purports to be a believer in God, and in fact, believes so strongly that she can refuse all the help that comes her way, not realizing, like the atheist, that God works behind the scenes.
As extreme and ridiculous as these stories are, I've read of and seen for myself many people who think like this. I'm sure we've all come across atheists who absolutely refuse to believe in God unless God were to show up right in front of them. By this I mean he's got to come out in all his divine glory, like with a halo and be super bright and such, whatever it is that they're expecting. Coming like Jesus doesn't count. Even if you do a bunch of miracles. It's not good enough. You have to look like God, possibly even be accompanied by a symphony of angelic singing. Of course, Jesus did appear like this on two separate occasions (the transfiguration and his birth announcement to the shepherds), but other than that, he looked really normal and boring. And as far as we can tell from the gospels, he sounded really normal too. It doesn't say that he used some kind of awesome God-voice where everyone could tell right away that he was God. But even here, almost as if to placate the naysayers, God (the Father) did in fact show up and rumble in his awesome God-voice (Jn 12:28-30). So either way, they really had no excuse. As a side note, it seems to me that the real reason atheists make these kinds of preposterous demands is because they know they're preposterous. By demanding what they know is (almost certainly) not going to happen, they think they have the right to then shove aside any other kind of evidence for the existence of God.
Now going back to the main thread, I think a lot of "trust in the Lord" is actually an excuse for laziness and irresponsibility. I once heard of a guy who said he didn't vote because he believed that the results of elections were in the hands of God. This is absolved him of his civic duty. Actually, it's a privilege, but you should think of it as your duty. But you know, voting takes a long time. I mean, if you do it responsibly and actually put in the long hours of research. This is something most people aren't willing to do, especially when everyone claims to be so busy. So this guy came up with a real convenient excuse for excusing himself from the polls. But what if every Christian thought like this? Then none of the Christians would vote and Christian values would quickly disappear from the political arena. And then are we supposed to blame God? Well, that's also really convenient.
I can think of another example of this sort of sloppy thinking, and to the shame of Christians everywhere, I think it betrays just how common it is among them to "overspiritualize" everything, which is another way of saying oversimplify everything, always having ready cookie-cutter answers for every issue that's too painful or too hard to solve. I was once talking with a Christian about how Christian women are going to have a hard time finding a Christian spouse, because of the gender imbalance (skewed towards females) in the church in most countries. In case you don't already know, Christians generally frown upon marrying non-Christians. In fact, among a lot of Protestant evangelicals, it's looked at as a sin and is strictly forbidden. While I also highly encourage preferring a Christian spouse for Christians, I realize that this just isn't always possible. However, this person wouldn't listen to sense. Their reply? "God can take care of it." Take care of it? How? I objected. I said, "This is exactly the problem with Christians. It's a simple mathematical fact that there's not enough men to go around for all the Christian women, and they expect God to 'take care of it'". At this, my interlocutor seemed a little sheepish and tried to back down, realizing that I was right, that this is a much more complex question than can be waved away with "God will take care of it." In any case, breaking this down philosophically, as I said above, a lot of Christians are very happy to leave everything to God and not do anything to figure things out with the brains he gave us. It's sloppy thinking skewed towards philosophical idealism (overspiritualizing), as opposed to the other example I gave of materialists overphysicalizing everything and demanding that God show up in some kind of visual/physical/tangible way right in front of them. Neither the overspiritualizer nor the overphysicalizer is willing to think. The overspiritualizer thinks they're being pious by saying things like "Just have faith," and "It's because of the devil", rather than really thinking through the tough issues of life. The overphysicalizer is unwilling to seriously consider any kind of argument or evidence for the existence of God, a Creator or Redeemer, etc, basically saying they can't believe because they can't see God, that is, in the same way they can see you or me.
So let's get back to King Asa. I don't have any problem with him building fortresses and trusting in the Lord. That sounds smart. But what about trusting in physicians rather than the Lord? I think this is possible, although it's also possible to rely on doctors for medical help and also trust in God. So what does it mean to not trust in God?
The most obvious thing that comes to mind is disobeying God because you think this will be to your advantage, or because you think it'll help you avoid some trouble you're afraid of getting into. First of all, disobeying God will never be to your advantage, and this is true even if it's true that you'll wind up in some kind of trouble for following God. A lot of corruption in government and business and the Church, comes from bad apples higher up whom everyone is afraid of confronting, because they're afraid they're going to lose their job. Keeping mum is an obvious sign that you care more about keeping your job than being true to God. It also means that you fear your higher ups more than you fear God, which is insane. Not only should you not fear your higher ups more than God, you shouldn't even fear them at all.
Another sign is not necessarily doing or failing to do a particular action, but having an attitude of distrust -- fear and worry. However, fear and worry are the things that lead to concrete actions (or nonaction) of disobedience.
Another sign is being a control freak. You're worried or even convinced that if you don't take care of every possibility and eventuality, that you'll get screwed over. This could lead to you being a pushy, neurotic person, and probably not very relaxed. It's also not hard to see how this could lead to you doing something seriously disobedient.
At the very least, if faithlessness doesn't lead to you causing problems for yourself (which was the very thing you were seeking to avoid), it's at least very unpleasant to live life like this. Taking care of yourself on a God-level of control is going to lead to a lot of stress and frazzled nerves. It's much better to relax and rest in God. This doesn't mean you don't try your best -- of course that's a requirement to always do your best whatever you decide to do (Eccl 9:10) -- but the attitude behind this will determine in what spirit you're acting -- in God or outside of him? This in turn will determine what course of action you decide to take and what the larger outcome will be of each episode of your life and the whole of your life.
Why would Jesus praise the poor widow for giving up her two coins when that was all she had to live on? Shouldn’t a person take responsibility for their own support? Where did she expect to get the money to do so if she gave away what little she had? (Lk 21:2-4)
Though Jesus praises her, I find it hard to do so myself, for the above reasons. The only way I can really justify such an action is if she had so little it wouldn't have made any difference whether she kept her 2 coins or not. On top of all this, I don't see who could make better use of her money than she herself, since she was on the bottom rung of the social ladder. I guess as long as this lady didn't become a burden to anyone else, it's fine however much money she wanted to give away. But I have a hard time believing that God would take care of this lady given that she was poor in the first place, so apparently God wasn't taking care of all her needs.
I was reading in the Philokalia (I forget where, and as of right now I'm too lazy to go look it up) the writings of some monk who was speaking against keeping anything at all for oneself, even one's living expenses, when giving up the layperson lifestyle. Monks aren't supposed to own anything and to live in poverty, surviving off of the bare essentials, and perhaps not even that depending on their zealousness for asceticism. For laypeople, it's OK to have savings and to look after your future from your own private resources. Personally, I find nothing wrong with the lay lifestyle. It sounds sensible, and even the bible commends this kind of financial prudence. Then you have the monk mentality, where holding onto any kind of materiality or possession is seen as reprehensible. On the other hand, it's true that the monk displays a radical dependence on the provision of God, which also sounds like a good thing to me. So there's this tension here, and this is very similar to the question above (about King Asa), except this is getting more specific, and I think it hits closer to home. Like the question above, I don't see why you can't trust in God either way, whether you're a layperson or a monk. Though a layperson saves for the future and stocks up for the rainy day, even the layperson must realize that all things come from God, that money comes and goes and can't be trusted, and that God is where we ultimately get our sustenance from. Despite this, I can see how the monk's training in trust in the provision of God is much more "rigorous". Questions of whether you'll be able to eat potentially crop up everyday. This could still be true of the poor layperson, but for many laypeople, this sort of question only arises occasionally. That's when God tests them to see if they truly trust in him or whether they were trusting in their savings or job stability or the prosperity of their business.
So could the widow have held onto her 2 coins and still found approval in God's eyes? Possibly. If a poor person holds onto the last of their cash because they need it for their living expenses, I see nothing wrong with that. If this same poor person gives the last of their cash to charity, especially to someone poorer than themself, surely that's a very generous act and displays outstanding trust in God's provision. At the same time, I'm not sure if I would call it prudent. That's all I can say about this. It's another one of those "Christian balance" questions and I can't say I've attained the wisdom to teach others exactly where to strike the balance.
In James, it sounds so easy to be healed, so long as you have faith, but how is this so, seeing that Paul prayed for the thorn in his flesh, but it didn’t go away? (Jas 5:14-16, II Cor 12:7-8) (see also Good & Evil/Pain & Suffering) In other words, how do we know we have enough faith? And is it possible to expect too much? Jesus said, "... these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Mk 16:17-18) And elsewhere, though Jesus addresses the following words to the 72* when he was sending them out (therefore some would make the argument that they apply only to those 72 and not all Christians), they still ring very similar: "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons." (Mt 10:8) (*Although technically this passage refers to the 12, I personally think that this is the same mission of the 72 mentioned in Lk 10.) While I would agree that if you go to a church that never sees miracles, that could be a bad sign, I definitely don't feel comfortable going around claiming that I can heal people, and I think the number of people who can rightfully claim this is so miniscule as to make me wonder if we haven't really grabbed hold of the power of the Holy Spirit.
How come Jeremiah didn’t know that it was the word of the Lord that had come to him concerning the field in Anathoth until the word came true? (Jer 31:6-8) Aren't we supposed to have more faith than that? This is actually very similar to the question directly above. If you're going to claim you can heal someone, you very well be 100% confident that it's going to happen. 99% sure really isn't good enough. However, it takes tremendous faith to get up to 100% certainty. Likewise, it seems like Jeremiah wasn't 100% certain until the prophecy came true.
Well, then, since we're on it, why don't we talk about faith and what I'll call "it-could-all-be-otherwise", which I'll shorten to ICABO, which I suppose is just a fancy way of saying "doubt", but I mean a certain kind of doubt. I'll illustrate by example. I don't believe that AI, or what is commonly called GOFAI (good old-fashioned AI) is possible. I'm talking about the kind of AI you see in sci-fi movies, the kind of AI that could pass any kind of AI test with flying colors. Then why, whenever I see an article claiming to make some kind of amazing progress in AI (and specifically of the GOFAI type), do I always read it? I read it to check and make sure that my belief, or rather non-belief in AI, is true. So far, I haven't come across any true example of GOFAI, of which I'm not surprised. After all, as a Christian and as a dualist, I don't think creating the equivalent of a human soul, what AIers would call a "mind", is possible. Possible for God, but certainly not for us. These people (and I think they must all be atheistic materialists) think that the mind is just the brain, which is physical, and therefore, it stands to reason that if you could just replicate the physical structure of the brain, you could turn on the electricity and voila! -- a full-fledged mind, GOFAI. Me, I think even if you could replicate a human brain exactly and turned on the switch, you'd probably get a really nice computer, but nothing else -- no real thinking, no real feeling, no life -- nothing, no one would be there.
So if I check out the articles, does that mean I'm not 100% sure of my unbelief in AI? Some people would say yes. I say no. I maintain that I'm still 100% sure that AI is impossible. Naysayers would say that if I was really 100% sure I would never read another AI article in my life, since it'd be a waste. OK, I see their point. It's true that I don't think it's a complete waste of time.
So now we go back to ICABO. I think my checking out these articles is actually a sign of a healthy faith. Not unhealthy faith, which shuts out new information and is afraid of being refuted. If such was the case, I would think that it's not because the believer is so sure of being right that they don't read the article, but because they're afraid that they don't. It seems to me that it's part of the human condition that we can never be so absolute in our thinking or beliefs that we can't check out the possibility that it might all be otherwise. This isn't an indictment against any particular belief or system of beliefs, but against our own human frailty. It's admitting that you're not all-knowing, all-seeing and hey, who knows? -- you might just find out something new that'll blow your mind.
It's living in this tension that's fascinating -- again, that balance that only the Christian knows so well. In this case, faith and ignorance, confidence and humility. Like the saying "Faith seeking understanding", coined by St. Anselm of Canterbury and a Doctor of the Church, perhaps we see this best illustrated in the bible by the times when Jesus' disciples questioned him about confusions they had in their faith, like about the man born blind -- "... who sinned, this man or his parents?" (Answer: neither) (Jn 9:2-3), their comment about Jesus' no-divorce policy -- "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry." (Jesus' reply -- take it or leave it) (Mt 19:10-11), or take Paul's admonishment about speaking in tongues -- "If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. ... I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also." (I Cor 14:14, 15) Or take the time that Abraham dared to ask, "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?" (Gn 18:23)
Come to think of it, this is very similar to what I talked about on another page [(About) the Divine Plan/Fate & Free Will], about God's perfect and manifested wills. In that case, we have this alternate reality that's hanging in the background, always potentially about to manifest, an alternate reality that even God takes seriously, as I discussed on that page. In this case, not that AI is potentially true, but given that I'm epistemically limited, I have to always consider that it could all be otherwise. So that's always in the background, though it may not (will not?) "manifest".
Isn't it pretty bad that Jesus marveled at their unbelief? (Mk 6:6) I'm truly perplexed by some people's psychopathy, but even Jesus doesn't get it. I wish I could say I understood evil people, but even God doesn't, and he's omniscient. Is evil just inherently un-understandable? So now we come to an interesting split -- what does it mean to understand evil? Surely God understands it on an intellectual level? But what about fully understand it? For him to fully understand it, would that mean he would have to relate to it? But that's not possible, since he's perfect. Then is God truly omniscient? Not that I'm saying he's not, but only in the same way that we could say he wouldn't be omnipotent if he couldn't make a mountain so big he couldn't lift it, which of course, is a ridiculous claim.
Some Thoughts and Observations on Pascal's Wager
(This is related to the topic of "the hiddenness of God", which you can read more on under the Angel and (About) the Divine Plan/Fate & Free Will pages. Search using the word "hidden".)
It occurred to me that as good as I think Pascal's Wager is as an argument for belief in God, it would fail as an argument for the atheist/agnostic for pretty much the very reason they're an atheist/agnostic -- they don't believe in an afterlife. Of course, the argument asks that you think about the afterlife hypothetically -- which is why I think the argument is a good one -- taken objectively and just looking at the big picture (of all possibilities), there's no doubt that this argument cannot fail.
But that's not how the unbeliever thinks, and this is a major reason why I seriously doubt whether anyone at all in history has come to belief because of this argument. The unbeliever thinks that if there is no afterlife, (which, at least for the atheist, they believe to be true), then obviously living a life of religion is a complete waste at best, harmful at worst, and could even result in you losing your life (if you die a martyr). So you see, this is how it goes -- even though it's true that there's no way that you can compare this little blip of a life with eternity, if there's no eternity, then this little blip becomes all there is, and therefore of paramount importance. You just don't want to waste this life if this is the only life there is. Even St. Paul said the same thing -- "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied." (I Cor 15:17-19) Therefore, in the atheist's view, living a life of faith is the exact opposite of what you want to do. If the atheist is right about there being no afterlife, then they're right.
But now we have to ask, (and this is what I really want to talk about) what exactly does the atheist have to gain from wagering against God? True, if it's true that there's no God, all religious practices of all sorts are a complete waste (prayers, rituals, church attendance, reading scripture, praising God, etc) although they're not harmful, except in the sense that they rob you of time, energy and money that you could have spent on better things. But what are these better things? What is a life without God? Honestly, the only real benefit that I can see out of there being no God and in the atheist's point of view is the moral freedom to be amoral or immoral. And I don't see how that's a true benefit. Notice that I say this is a real, but not a true benefit. In a way it's a benefit, and truly it's not. If you're an immoral person and wish to be immoral, then it's a benefit, but you'd be wrong. Again, this is all a matter of perspective. The immoral person scoffs at the moral person for being stupid enough to care about all this moral fluff that does the individual no good and will eventually get them into trouble, possibly very serious trouble, and it's hard to think that anyone's life is so easy that they are not at least once in their life sorely tested to sell their soul. Arguing with such a person about the rightness of morality, even arguing that the immoral person is hypocritical in that they themself want to be rightly treated, makes no sense to the amoral person. While they might cut your throat for crossing them, I don't think they'd blame you for trying to do so. This person thinks that morality is all sentimental, and the truly wise person is above all that, valuing pragmatism and practicality above all else. And so with the atheist. I think I'd be hard put to think of a single atheist who doesn't at least partly look down on the believer as being weak and not to be taken seriously. The atheist scoffs at the believer, denigrating religion as a bunch of silly, even ridiculous fluff. This isn't to say that believers don't think the same way about atheistic beliefs -- I sure do, but the attitude is quite different. If the believer thinks the atheist's beliefs are silly and ridiculous, (if they're honest), they think this way because they know how wrong these beliefs are. It's a mostly objective assessment, with not a little bewilderment that anyone could be so absolutely deluded. And if the atheist is especially far gone, we fear for them and tremble to think of their end at the Judgment. Whereas the atheist's view of the believer is very close to that of the amoralist looking down on the moralist, ie, they're stupid, feather-brained and weak. Look no further than Nietzsche as a good example of what I'm talking about here.
So now we come back to the age-old question -- what good is it to be good? Doesn't might make right? Delving into this further, both sides have their pros and cons. As we already noted, the amoralist can be as pragmatic and practical as they wish -- or as far as they can get away with. This is the con of being an amoralist -- you will probably eventually get caught and then your sins will catch up with you. However, it's also true that this may not happen (which is what the afterlife is for, folks), or at least not to the extent that you deserve. Even if nothing bad happens, you may very well live in constant fear of something bad happening, provided that you've racked up enough enemies, something which is not difficult to do at all. Then there's all the practical matters that need to be attended to -- not getting caught, spinning elaborate and believable lies, hiding your tracks, putting up a good front, perhaps even assuaging a guilty conscience, if that even still exists.
On the moralist's side, first of all, being good is hard, even if no one bothers you for it. But that's probably not going to happen. Eventually, someone is not going to like that you're good and they're going to give you a hard time for it. Many people in history have been killed for this. And in some periods of history, there is absolutely no way to continue in your goodness without being hacked down. In such times, most people choose to sell their souls rather than lose their bodies. This is due to a matter of perspective, as I keep noting in this observation. If there's no soul, then at least keep your body. But if there is a soul, better to lose your body than your soul. However, this requires faith. Even if a person claims to be religious, you can see which side they really believe in by what they end up choosing -- the body or the soul? For most people, the body is more real than the soul. It's no surprise then, how many people sell their souls. It's happening left and right. How many people out there are truly honest?
Now speaking purely practically, there are indeed some pros to being good. First, there's the natural reward for being good, in that people are more likely to like you, get along with you, try to help you out, appreciate you, etc. Of course, that's only as long as it doesn't cost them their skin or livelihood. But that still covers a lot. But in my opinion, an even better pro of being good is that even in hard times, the good person is much stronger and has more inner resources than the bad person. The good person endures no matter what. The bad person is so weak. Any obstacle at all and they'll take the easy way out. They'll even sell their soul. They have no faith at all. They're filled with fear about the future, always taking on a defensive posture toward life. They make decisions and live life from a position of weakness, not victory. They'll kowtow to anyone or anything. They have no resolve -- except to survive and climb higher. Their minds just can't contemplate any higher ideals. But again, this is a matter of perspective. The psychopath prides themself on their ruthlessness, strength, cunning, and not giving into shameful feelings like guilt, pity, humility.
And now I'd like to mention what I believe is the biggest pro/con of both sides, which truly makes me shudder, and that's the end of the wicked person. For the wicked person, when the end comes, it's really the end. The amazing thing is that the wicked person knows it. A look of sheer terror passes over their eyes at the realization that the comeuppance they never believed in has finally arrived in all its horrifying finality. They know that this time, there is no escape. Struggle is futile. In this, they admit defeat. Not so for the good person. While others might call it "the end" for them, they sure don't act like it. This too, is taken as one more struggle to be overcome, but it's not the end of the story. The end for the good person doesn't come until victory.
So I really don't see what the one who wagers against God wins. I guess you can shout and cheer that you're free from God and his will, but is that really anything to shout and cheer about? Doesn't that just mean you're amoral and hate God's rules? So let's reiterate the wager -- if God is real and you serve and obey him, the afterlife is yours. And if there is no God and you serve and obey him, you may or may not live a good life, although it definitely won't be materialistically luxurious or morally extravagant, and you will have kept your inner goodness. If God is real and you don't serve or obey him, you will spend eternity in torment, and if God is not real and you don't serve and obey him, you get to do whatever you want, which will be fun, but probably won't make you happy or feel fulfilled. This should probably be a clue that the assumption that God is not real and that you don't have to serve or obey any higher being untrue and that you better change your wager.
Furthermore, we have to look at this from the aspect of confidence in your wager. This again is where Pascal's wager cannot be defeated. The typical human lifespan of say, 75 years, cannot be compared to eternity. Therefore, you should never wager against God unless you're absolutely 100% sure that there is no God. However, this level of certainty can never be humanly reached. Therefore, you're an idiot if you wager against God. I say this from thought experimenting myself in the position of the doubter. Sure, living a life free from the constraints of morality has its attractions, but the conviction that right is right and wrong is wrong is so strong that I would never be able to completely turn my back against God. I would keep looking back, nagged by that little 1% chance that God might really be real. And if you cannot completely silence that nagging voice, then I say give in and believe wholeheartedly. And if you can completely silence that nagging voice -- I don't believe this is possible. Therefore, the one who wagers against God has a lot of gall -- they're that idiot who takes a chance rather than making sure and not taking any chances with their fate, a decision which is entirely in their control -- the adulterer, the daredevil, the lazy fool, the one who trusts too readily, the one who believes everything they hear, the schemer, the gambler, and everyone else who is hanging on the chance of not getting their comeuppance.
What I wonder about is given that agnostics are on the fence about all this, wouldn't it be best for them (in their own minds) to bet with Pascal and choose religion? But as I said earlier, I seriously doubt that anyone has ever come to faith through this argument. After all, an argument is dead without faith.
I was discussing this with an agnostic friend, and so I have more to add today. The first is my friend's cake in a box analogy. I mention this because it clearly illustrates the wager in starker terms, really reducing it to its bare essence so that we can forget about any outside considerations. Not that these outside considerations are superfluous (we talked about the moral dimension earlier) but I'd like us to think about the wager in completely logical terms, much like looking at a decision matrix (an example of which is available here.)
So the analogy says you're presented with a box, which might have a cake in it (pick your favorite kind), or it might be empty. If you guess that there's a cake inside and you're right, you get the cake. If you guess that there's no cake and there is, you get no cake. If there's no cake and you guess that there is a cake, you get no cake, and if you guess that there's no cake and there's no cake, you get no cake. Obviously, you should guess that there's a cake inside. It's obvious from a purely logical point of view, and assuming that you like cake, which we are. It's interesting that my friend came up with this analogy when in the end, no amount of reasoning could get him to come to his senses. Well, I always that faith comes before reason. I'd also like you to notice that Pascal's Wager mentions nothing about whether God really exists or not, only that you should believe that God exists. Which leads me to ask, what's the Atheist's Wager? Can one be constructed that would be just as tricky and difficult as Pascal's? (My friend readily agrees that Pascal's Wager is a tough one.)
One of my friend's major objections (which, as it turns out, is also discussed on the Wikipedia page, so this isn't anything quite new, except for my rebuttal of the counterargument), is the argument from inconsistent revelations. First, I'm not arguing for the existence of any particular God here, only what might be called "the philosophers' God". Of course there's different conceptions of God, the Hindu concept of God being no concept of God at all to Christians, but I don't want to get bogged down in those details at the moment. You can think of the philosophers' God as belief in a Higher Being. Secondly, in reply to my friend claiming that belief in God is equivalent to belief in the Pink Elephant, I pointed out that he himself did not equate God to the Pink Elephant. He doesn't take any God seriously except for perhaps the Christian God, which is why he's agnostic. If he could fully equate the Christian God to the Pink Elephant, then he'd be an atheist. You may argue that my second point here only applies to my friend, and while I admit that there may be some atheists who take the Christian God as seriously as the Pink Elephant, I think most of them don't. However, you can read more about this on the Atheism page.
I'd also like to emphasize that mathematically speaking, any finite amount compared to infinity is nothing at all, even billions of billions of years, something which isn't even humanly fathomable. And if not billions of billions of years, how much less (infinitely less!) infinity? In light of this, the argument that if there is no eternity then this is all there is that's important, substantially weakens.
So now we go back to ICABO. I think my checking out these articles is actually a sign of a healthy faith. Not unhealthy faith, which shuts out new information and is afraid of being refuted. If such was the case, I would think that it's not because the believer is so sure of being right that they don't read the article, but because they're afraid that they don't. It seems to me that it's part of the human condition that we can never be so absolute in our thinking or beliefs that we can't check out the possibility that it might all be otherwise. This isn't an indictment against any particular belief or system of beliefs, but against our own human frailty. It's admitting that you're not all-knowing, all-seeing and hey, who knows? -- you might just find out something new that'll blow your mind.
It's living in this tension that's fascinating -- again, that balance that only the Christian knows so well. In this case, faith and ignorance, confidence and humility. Like the saying "Faith seeking understanding", coined by St. Anselm of Canterbury and a Doctor of the Church, perhaps we see this best illustrated in the bible by the times when Jesus' disciples questioned him about confusions they had in their faith, like about the man born blind -- "... who sinned, this man or his parents?" (Answer: neither) (Jn 9:2-3), their comment about Jesus' no-divorce policy -- "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry." (Jesus' reply -- take it or leave it) (Mt 19:10-11), or take Paul's admonishment about speaking in tongues -- "If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. ... I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also." (I Cor 14:14, 15) Or take the time that Abraham dared to ask, "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?" (Gn 18:23)
Come to think of it, this is very similar to what I talked about on another page [(About) the Divine Plan/Fate & Free Will], about God's perfect and manifested wills. In that case, we have this alternate reality that's hanging in the background, always potentially about to manifest, an alternate reality that even God takes seriously, as I discussed on that page. In this case, not that AI is potentially true, but given that I'm epistemically limited, I have to always consider that it could all be otherwise. So that's always in the background, though it may not (will not?) "manifest".
Isn't it pretty bad that Jesus marveled at their unbelief? (Mk 6:6) I'm truly perplexed by some people's psychopathy, but even Jesus doesn't get it. I wish I could say I understood evil people, but even God doesn't, and he's omniscient. Is evil just inherently un-understandable? So now we come to an interesting split -- what does it mean to understand evil? Surely God understands it on an intellectual level? But what about fully understand it? For him to fully understand it, would that mean he would have to relate to it? But that's not possible, since he's perfect. Then is God truly omniscient? Not that I'm saying he's not, but only in the same way that we could say he wouldn't be omnipotent if he couldn't make a mountain so big he couldn't lift it, which of course, is a ridiculous claim.
Some Thoughts and Observations on Pascal's Wager
(This is related to the topic of "the hiddenness of God", which you can read more on under the Angel and (About) the Divine Plan/Fate & Free Will pages. Search using the word "hidden".)
It occurred to me that as good as I think Pascal's Wager is as an argument for belief in God, it would fail as an argument for the atheist/agnostic for pretty much the very reason they're an atheist/agnostic -- they don't believe in an afterlife. Of course, the argument asks that you think about the afterlife hypothetically -- which is why I think the argument is a good one -- taken objectively and just looking at the big picture (of all possibilities), there's no doubt that this argument cannot fail.
But that's not how the unbeliever thinks, and this is a major reason why I seriously doubt whether anyone at all in history has come to belief because of this argument. The unbeliever thinks that if there is no afterlife, (which, at least for the atheist, they believe to be true), then obviously living a life of religion is a complete waste at best, harmful at worst, and could even result in you losing your life (if you die a martyr). So you see, this is how it goes -- even though it's true that there's no way that you can compare this little blip of a life with eternity, if there's no eternity, then this little blip becomes all there is, and therefore of paramount importance. You just don't want to waste this life if this is the only life there is. Even St. Paul said the same thing -- "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied." (I Cor 15:17-19) Therefore, in the atheist's view, living a life of faith is the exact opposite of what you want to do. If the atheist is right about there being no afterlife, then they're right.
But now we have to ask, (and this is what I really want to talk about) what exactly does the atheist have to gain from wagering against God? True, if it's true that there's no God, all religious practices of all sorts are a complete waste (prayers, rituals, church attendance, reading scripture, praising God, etc) although they're not harmful, except in the sense that they rob you of time, energy and money that you could have spent on better things. But what are these better things? What is a life without God? Honestly, the only real benefit that I can see out of there being no God and in the atheist's point of view is the moral freedom to be amoral or immoral. And I don't see how that's a true benefit. Notice that I say this is a real, but not a true benefit. In a way it's a benefit, and truly it's not. If you're an immoral person and wish to be immoral, then it's a benefit, but you'd be wrong. Again, this is all a matter of perspective. The immoral person scoffs at the moral person for being stupid enough to care about all this moral fluff that does the individual no good and will eventually get them into trouble, possibly very serious trouble, and it's hard to think that anyone's life is so easy that they are not at least once in their life sorely tested to sell their soul. Arguing with such a person about the rightness of morality, even arguing that the immoral person is hypocritical in that they themself want to be rightly treated, makes no sense to the amoral person. While they might cut your throat for crossing them, I don't think they'd blame you for trying to do so. This person thinks that morality is all sentimental, and the truly wise person is above all that, valuing pragmatism and practicality above all else. And so with the atheist. I think I'd be hard put to think of a single atheist who doesn't at least partly look down on the believer as being weak and not to be taken seriously. The atheist scoffs at the believer, denigrating religion as a bunch of silly, even ridiculous fluff. This isn't to say that believers don't think the same way about atheistic beliefs -- I sure do, but the attitude is quite different. If the believer thinks the atheist's beliefs are silly and ridiculous, (if they're honest), they think this way because they know how wrong these beliefs are. It's a mostly objective assessment, with not a little bewilderment that anyone could be so absolutely deluded. And if the atheist is especially far gone, we fear for them and tremble to think of their end at the Judgment. Whereas the atheist's view of the believer is very close to that of the amoralist looking down on the moralist, ie, they're stupid, feather-brained and weak. Look no further than Nietzsche as a good example of what I'm talking about here.
So now we come back to the age-old question -- what good is it to be good? Doesn't might make right? Delving into this further, both sides have their pros and cons. As we already noted, the amoralist can be as pragmatic and practical as they wish -- or as far as they can get away with. This is the con of being an amoralist -- you will probably eventually get caught and then your sins will catch up with you. However, it's also true that this may not happen (which is what the afterlife is for, folks), or at least not to the extent that you deserve. Even if nothing bad happens, you may very well live in constant fear of something bad happening, provided that you've racked up enough enemies, something which is not difficult to do at all. Then there's all the practical matters that need to be attended to -- not getting caught, spinning elaborate and believable lies, hiding your tracks, putting up a good front, perhaps even assuaging a guilty conscience, if that even still exists.
On the moralist's side, first of all, being good is hard, even if no one bothers you for it. But that's probably not going to happen. Eventually, someone is not going to like that you're good and they're going to give you a hard time for it. Many people in history have been killed for this. And in some periods of history, there is absolutely no way to continue in your goodness without being hacked down. In such times, most people choose to sell their souls rather than lose their bodies. This is due to a matter of perspective, as I keep noting in this observation. If there's no soul, then at least keep your body. But if there is a soul, better to lose your body than your soul. However, this requires faith. Even if a person claims to be religious, you can see which side they really believe in by what they end up choosing -- the body or the soul? For most people, the body is more real than the soul. It's no surprise then, how many people sell their souls. It's happening left and right. How many people out there are truly honest?
Now speaking purely practically, there are indeed some pros to being good. First, there's the natural reward for being good, in that people are more likely to like you, get along with you, try to help you out, appreciate you, etc. Of course, that's only as long as it doesn't cost them their skin or livelihood. But that still covers a lot. But in my opinion, an even better pro of being good is that even in hard times, the good person is much stronger and has more inner resources than the bad person. The good person endures no matter what. The bad person is so weak. Any obstacle at all and they'll take the easy way out. They'll even sell their soul. They have no faith at all. They're filled with fear about the future, always taking on a defensive posture toward life. They make decisions and live life from a position of weakness, not victory. They'll kowtow to anyone or anything. They have no resolve -- except to survive and climb higher. Their minds just can't contemplate any higher ideals. But again, this is a matter of perspective. The psychopath prides themself on their ruthlessness, strength, cunning, and not giving into shameful feelings like guilt, pity, humility.
And now I'd like to mention what I believe is the biggest pro/con of both sides, which truly makes me shudder, and that's the end of the wicked person. For the wicked person, when the end comes, it's really the end. The amazing thing is that the wicked person knows it. A look of sheer terror passes over their eyes at the realization that the comeuppance they never believed in has finally arrived in all its horrifying finality. They know that this time, there is no escape. Struggle is futile. In this, they admit defeat. Not so for the good person. While others might call it "the end" for them, they sure don't act like it. This too, is taken as one more struggle to be overcome, but it's not the end of the story. The end for the good person doesn't come until victory.
So I really don't see what the one who wagers against God wins. I guess you can shout and cheer that you're free from God and his will, but is that really anything to shout and cheer about? Doesn't that just mean you're amoral and hate God's rules? So let's reiterate the wager -- if God is real and you serve and obey him, the afterlife is yours. And if there is no God and you serve and obey him, you may or may not live a good life, although it definitely won't be materialistically luxurious or morally extravagant, and you will have kept your inner goodness. If God is real and you don't serve or obey him, you will spend eternity in torment, and if God is not real and you don't serve and obey him, you get to do whatever you want, which will be fun, but probably won't make you happy or feel fulfilled. This should probably be a clue that the assumption that God is not real and that you don't have to serve or obey any higher being untrue and that you better change your wager.
Furthermore, we have to look at this from the aspect of confidence in your wager. This again is where Pascal's wager cannot be defeated. The typical human lifespan of say, 75 years, cannot be compared to eternity. Therefore, you should never wager against God unless you're absolutely 100% sure that there is no God. However, this level of certainty can never be humanly reached. Therefore, you're an idiot if you wager against God. I say this from thought experimenting myself in the position of the doubter. Sure, living a life free from the constraints of morality has its attractions, but the conviction that right is right and wrong is wrong is so strong that I would never be able to completely turn my back against God. I would keep looking back, nagged by that little 1% chance that God might really be real. And if you cannot completely silence that nagging voice, then I say give in and believe wholeheartedly. And if you can completely silence that nagging voice -- I don't believe this is possible. Therefore, the one who wagers against God has a lot of gall -- they're that idiot who takes a chance rather than making sure and not taking any chances with their fate, a decision which is entirely in their control -- the adulterer, the daredevil, the lazy fool, the one who trusts too readily, the one who believes everything they hear, the schemer, the gambler, and everyone else who is hanging on the chance of not getting their comeuppance.
What I wonder about is given that agnostics are on the fence about all this, wouldn't it be best for them (in their own minds) to bet with Pascal and choose religion? But as I said earlier, I seriously doubt that anyone has ever come to faith through this argument. After all, an argument is dead without faith.
I was discussing this with an agnostic friend, and so I have more to add today. The first is my friend's cake in a box analogy. I mention this because it clearly illustrates the wager in starker terms, really reducing it to its bare essence so that we can forget about any outside considerations. Not that these outside considerations are superfluous (we talked about the moral dimension earlier) but I'd like us to think about the wager in completely logical terms, much like looking at a decision matrix (an example of which is available here.)
So the analogy says you're presented with a box, which might have a cake in it (pick your favorite kind), or it might be empty. If you guess that there's a cake inside and you're right, you get the cake. If you guess that there's no cake and there is, you get no cake. If there's no cake and you guess that there is a cake, you get no cake, and if you guess that there's no cake and there's no cake, you get no cake. Obviously, you should guess that there's a cake inside. It's obvious from a purely logical point of view, and assuming that you like cake, which we are. It's interesting that my friend came up with this analogy when in the end, no amount of reasoning could get him to come to his senses. Well, I always that faith comes before reason. I'd also like you to notice that Pascal's Wager mentions nothing about whether God really exists or not, only that you should believe that God exists. Which leads me to ask, what's the Atheist's Wager? Can one be constructed that would be just as tricky and difficult as Pascal's? (My friend readily agrees that Pascal's Wager is a tough one.)
One of my friend's major objections (which, as it turns out, is also discussed on the Wikipedia page, so this isn't anything quite new, except for my rebuttal of the counterargument), is the argument from inconsistent revelations. First, I'm not arguing for the existence of any particular God here, only what might be called "the philosophers' God". Of course there's different conceptions of God, the Hindu concept of God being no concept of God at all to Christians, but I don't want to get bogged down in those details at the moment. You can think of the philosophers' God as belief in a Higher Being. Secondly, in reply to my friend claiming that belief in God is equivalent to belief in the Pink Elephant, I pointed out that he himself did not equate God to the Pink Elephant. He doesn't take any God seriously except for perhaps the Christian God, which is why he's agnostic. If he could fully equate the Christian God to the Pink Elephant, then he'd be an atheist. You may argue that my second point here only applies to my friend, and while I admit that there may be some atheists who take the Christian God as seriously as the Pink Elephant, I think most of them don't. However, you can read more about this on the Atheism page.
I'd also like to emphasize that mathematically speaking, any finite amount compared to infinity is nothing at all, even billions of billions of years, something which isn't even humanly fathomable. And if not billions of billions of years, how much less (infinitely less!) infinity? In light of this, the argument that if there is no eternity then this is all there is that's important, substantially weakens.
