Arguing from the Conclusion

In teaching and in many blogs, that I have read recently, a substantial number of scholars seem to be ‘arguing to the conclusion.’ I suppose everyone does it, but there are times when doing so confuses arguments or your understanding of concepts.

I remember some time in my second year of University, discussion of anti-realism/nominalism was flippantly engaged in without ever giving any form of introduction. Surely concepts at this basic level of epistomology ought to be tackled as fundamentals of the discipline rather than assumed in teaching.

I noticed a Fundamentalist magazine editor commit the same ‘argument from conclusion’ in an article criticising Driscol, though I do not have the link on me.

A Sociological Argument for the Existence of God

A warning in advance, that this argument will far from satisfy a religious believer because it does not in any way seek to affirm any traditional image of God. Furthermore, I do not consider it the burden of Theology to prove the existence of God, but rather the burden of Philosophy, hence this post’s categorisation.

This argument relies, or at least touches, on the following beliefs:

• Our reality is defined by our perception, beyond that which we experience and participate in nothing (specifically to us, as individuals) exists.
• In light of this, to claim objectivity is futile, we must view everything in light of a certain degree of subjectivity.
• The traditional ways of thinking about God are too objective, we can only hope to understand him in the context of our own experience.

You can of course argue against these points, and I welcome such discussions as long as responses are reasonable.

The actual argument from sociology is simply this: that the very belief in God confirms his existence, to the individual, and, regardless of the reality of a physical/metaphysical being called ‘God’, the weight with which we may discuss him comes exclusively from the amount of belief  in him that exists.

It is this latter point that allows us to give authority to God. As an example take the idea of democracy, it exists as a concept at the very least and as a reality at the very most. The weight with which it exists as a reality is determined by the following that it has. Although I do not wish to reduce God to a simple ideology, by any means, I wish to point out that he exists in this way at the very least.

Similarly to the seeming insurmountable popularity of the ideology of democracy, the Catholic Church of the Middle-Ages held legitimacy through God by the sheer weight of belief in him.

Thus, it is perhaps becoming clear that I am not making an argument here for a specific ‘brand’ of God, or even a physical or spiritual being, but a lowest form which has authority. Thus to neglect to consider the possibility of God is ultimately foolish.

My greatest concern at this stage is to stress that a sociological God is not limiting, it is not a constraint on the possibilities of what God may ultimately be. It is simply a means of justifying, or legitimising consideration of God in extra-theological discussion.

The greatest criticism I can level against this argument, in my own consideration of its implications, are that it reduces God to a creature, but further than that a creation of humanity, rather than something more. I will be dealing with this criticism at some stage.

Restoring God to Reality

God has been defined in dozens of ways, whether as one of many similar personalities in the thinking of early, polytheistic humanity or as the detached, all-powerful creation of monotheistic thinking. In the age of modernism he is, to many, not a personality even to the degree which the monotheist considered him, but a science born of so-called autonomous reason. The one clear and distinct defining attribute of God is this, that throughout human history there has always been some great object of following and belief.

I have begun generally, and I may expand on the statements in the introduction to this post at a later time, but for now I wish to examine the nature of God in traditional, religious thinking in Monotheism.

There are many features attributed to God, he is called omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, immutable and omnipresent. It is this set of features, and others like them, that I wish to draw into question. I am not, with any certainty, making belief statements, merely theorising about the possibilities that can be opened up, particularly in Christianity, with a rethinking of what God fundamentally is.

Most of the strict features attributed to God are Hellenic (Graeco-Roman) in origin, particularly stemming from the Platonic theory of Forms. If we remove the obstacle of the fusion of Hellenic thought from Christianity we are presented with a far more personal God, with a greater relationship to creation and a more active role in human relationships. The detatched puppet-master becomes a force for good in co-operation with his creation.

Take the idea of God as eternal, as a first example. It is my proposition that time and space are not creatures, but essential features of reality. To describe this in more approachable terms, time and space are not a house, built by God to house the rest of his creations but the very wind and earth of his world as well as our own. Reality, in my proposed model, is one and the same as existence; thus, God is not limited by being constrained to the same reality as his creation, it is merely the case that he is part of it.

The problems within Christianity that this solvers are many, but the greatest of these that I have discussed is participation. I have previously explained my thoughts on the importance of the material participation of Jesus to the Resurrection, how much deeper a relationship would creature maintain with Creator if the Godhead shared this common ground with humanity.

If God is a participant in time and space, as we are, then prayer becomes a truly independent and effective act of worship and change. If God has not already written the future, as a Hellenistic reading would demand, but merely dictates what he is yet to do through future eschatology, then prayer is a true discussion with the divine. Just as Moses convinced God to stay his wrath, so may the current generation make real requests of the divine, be it for change, for mercy or for aid.

Participatory Ontology

There exists a dualism in modernity between ‘faith’ and ‘reason’, born out of the Enlightenment project. As the disciples of reason broke free of oppressive faith they became hostile to it, and strove to establish autonomous reason, reason free from the considerations of faith – pure reason. Modernity has placed this pure reason and faith in conflict with one another; faith, especially in the project of Fundamentalism, has reacted with a system of pure of faith, untainted by the considerations of reason.

This pure reason leads to a sense in which the immanent and material are the exclusive domain of reason, and the transcendent is the exclusive domain of faith. To give real meaning to the theological in the postmodern world there is a requirement for a participatory theology, not merely a participation in the transcendent, however, but in the immanent also. That every work of the created (humanity in this case) reflects, first, its position in a created world, and second, its communion with the Creator. This demands that ultimately every element of the world be considered in light of its participation as a created thing.

Creation, within Christian Theology, must be viewed in the light of the Cross. The Resurrection changes the perspective of Christianity in all things and must be a consideration even in the discussion of what has gone before it. The theology of Christianity, its grand meta-narrative, is the Cross; the historical event of the Creation must be viewed as a chapter in the story of the Cross. Without this meta-narrative, Creation simply slips into presenting a natural theology.

The goal of this post is to offer a genuinely materialistic theology, along similar lines as Radical Orthodoxy, material in the sense that we will abandon Descartes in his argument that we are “thinking things” inhabiting a secondary reality as a body; and theological in the sense that this material body regains genuine relevance to transcendence. The requirement for the material reality of the Resurrection lies here: it is the purest statement of the relevance of the body. We must do away with the second great dualism of modernity, that of body and soul; stop thinking of the two as detached realities held together by some vicious scheme or failure, and see them as one created thing.

The Low Hypocracy

I apologise in advance for the conversational manner of this post, it is late and I have been working on a thesis all day that has left me too drained to properly itterate and reference my thoughts, but I hope you get the general ‘gist’ regardless.

The reformation brought with it a plague upon Christianity, a plague of anti-religious sentiment. The liturgical and aesthetic was stripped from the Church to give us what we refer to as the ‘low church’. Denominations on both sides of the modern theological divide, of Fumdamentalism and Liberalism, have avoided anything which may be construed as religious arguing that it distracts from true worship.

My first point, of two, is that liturgy does not distract from true worship. It has been argued that a ritualised act or symbol causes too much focus to be taken away from worship, however, many who take part in liturgical worship with an open mind leave with a different view. Clarke is one recent convert to the view that liturgical worship offers just as edifying an experience, with just as much focus on God, as low church worship. Many scholars with a sensibility to Radical Orthodoxy argue along the same lines – even emphasising the greater experience offered by liturgy.

My second point is that the low church has become religiously anti-religious. There is still a ritualised liturgy, however, it is a liturgy lacking in the aesthetic spleandour of conservative services. There still remains an order of service, it may not be as widely used as a Catholic Mass but a service of a structure similar to the following is still an order of service: a few hymns interspersed with a family message and prayers, a sermon, a final hymn and a final prayer.

At some stage it must be realised that humanity is an experiential creature. We are not so devoid of involvement that the mundane allows us to focus on the divine just as easily as the ornate and aesthetic. Reasoning that there is a God through a self-imposed sense of the inerrancy of scripture is no more admirable than seeing God in creation. A choral evensong is always preferable to an evangelical, Bible-camp style acoustic sing-along – try it and see.