I want everyone to repeat after me: “I don’t know.” Go ahead, say it – it’s quite liberating! It’s kind of the same feeling as shouting “I admit that I believe Michael Bolton is truly ugly,” but without the popular backlash.
The Apologetic Professor is incredibly fond of that phrase. (I mean the phrase “I don’t know;” although I’m fond of the one about Michael Bolton, too).
I cannot figure out for the life of me why Christians feel the need to answer every single question about the faith. No one holds anything else to this kind of standard in any other aspect of life. When quantum physicists tell us they cannot explain how big forces and small forces fit together, we do not say “well, I guess all of quantum physics is bosh. Screw gravity!” When astronomers say they cannot explain how a black hole works, we do not say “I suppose there is no such thing as a supernova after all.” If your friend cannot tell you how to navigate around New York City, does it follow from that that she cannot tell you how to get to her own house?
The point is obvious: Not knowing things does not (necessarily) invalidate the things one does know.
Well, Christianity does not claim to answer every question. In fact, in Christianity we are repeatedly taught to question and doubt the limits of our own knowledge. Yes, to question. To doubt. Indeed, it may surprise some folks to realize that it borders on blasphemy in Christianity to think we have all the answers; by definition, only One being in the universe can have all the answers. By a curious coincidence, God did not decide to put all answers to everything in my head. Bad break!
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Oftentimes, I think when someone asks us a question like “why does John say there were two angels at the tomb when Mark says one angel?” I wonder why Christians spend a lot of unnecessary time trying to prove that 2 = 1. (That is kind of like the equivalent of trying to make up an answer about how to get to Wall Street when we don’t know how to get there.) The proper answer isn’t to try and prove that 2 = 1; the proper answer is “I have no idea; but who cares? Let me tell you about what we do know. The accounts about Jesus do not disagree on anything important. Let’s talk about those.”
The Apologetic Professor believes strongly that it hurts, and not helps, our cause if we skew facts or arguments in our favor. Rather, we take St. Thomas Aquinas’ view that it is best to be fair – to present the opposing arguments in their full and total glory. That is why St. Thomas Aquinas’ arguments for his opponents’ positions are often considered the best arguments ever produced for that position; he believed in presenting the best foot for the opposition first. We do, too.
As a result, I take historical and factual accuracy seriously. I am not afraid of the Truth. If God wanted a universe where all the facts pointed one way, He would have made one. He didn’t. He left room for doubt…on purpose.
Thus, the Apologetic Professor makes the following promise: The stuff we discuss here will not intentionally distort history or facts or science. We will present the facts as we see them in an objective manner, whether they seem on the surface to help or hurt our case. That isn’t to say that errors won’t occur – of course they will. History and science are both glorious but imperfect enterprises, and though I am a scientist, I am not a historian. (As a rule, I distrust history because I distrust people. I believe what I see, and I cannot directly see history. As a result, I base very few arguments directly on history itself). So if you find errors, let us know and we will correct them (provided you can give appropriate documentation for the change).
As an atheist, I’m sometimes frustrated by what I see as the “win-win” logic of believers. If there is evidence that points towards God, that’s great–score one for believers! But if there’s evidence pointing elsewhere, or evidence that is neutral–that’s okay, too, because believers happen to know that God “left room for doubt…on purpose.” For believers, the absence of evidence is not simply not evidence of absence, but actually another proof of God–it shows Him at work leaving room for doubt! I’m skeptical as to how believers know that, or how anyone could know God’s purposes, but I think I know the argument; God wants us to have faith and faith can only exist in the face of doubt (otherwise, it’s not faith, it’s simple recognition of self-evident facts), just as virtue can only be achieved (some say) in the face of temptation. God wants both our intellect and our virtue to overcome obstacles; thus, of course, Jesus praised those who have not seen, and yet believe, and thus we are taught to distrust “cloistered virtue”. But why does God value faith and the overcoming of doubt (or the overcoming of temptation) more than simple, direct, unambiguous knowledge (or more than unchallenged, untempted virtue)? Do good parents deliberately test their children’s trust by periodically, deliberately disappearing, or by pretending to withdraw their love, or by leaving the children in doubt as to the parents’ intentions toward them (“Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love…”)? From what I understand of psychology, such “intermittent reinforcement” is a recipe for neurosis (and also a fairly good description of the Biblical God’s behavior). I think that, when we say that God deliberately allows doubt and temptation, we’re really just trying to rationalize a world in which doubt and temptation obviously exist; we’re trying to reconcile those things with a God who could (if He’s God) have created a world without them. But then, if God so values doubt, why should there ever be, or ever have been, such a thing as “revelation”? If God wants us to parse out His existence in the face of doubt and ambiguity, why dictate/inspire various writings that remove (supposedly) doubt or ambiguity, and to which believers for millenia have turned for certainty? Why appear to anyone at all, at any time, in any form? Why grant the founders of a faith, or various believers, the privilege of direct, irrefutable experience of divinity, but leave everyone else to believe on second- or third-hand testimonies, in a universe that is ambiguous at best? I know it’s poor form (as Job learned) to question either God’s motives or actions, but still, I’m stumped: God creates a universe in which room is left for doubt, then provides revelation to remove the doubt He allowed in the first place. Put another way, God expects the finite creatures He has made (who can see, we are told, only dimly at best) to somehow wend their way through a divinely-created maze of doubt and ambiguity; He expects creatures of limited intellect to reason their way to His existence in the face of conflicting evidence, and creatures of limited moral capacities to follow His laws in the face of constant temptation. I could be wrong, but it seems like He’s expecting a lot, especially of creatures whose limitations He knows only too well.
Jack: I don’t think it’s poor form to ask honest questions of God personally. The psalmists do it all the time, and you are in especially good company (from a Christian point of view, anyway)…Jesus Himself questioned the Father openly on the cross. And remember that Job was ultimately praised while his friends were rebuked!
I appreciated this post immensely, and I grant there is a lot of force behind your arguments. In fact, most reasonable people I know have wondered the exact same set of questions — and I have wondered them, too.
I originally had worked up a long comment here, but it got so long that I decided to turn it into a blog post. Mostly I agree with you about the win-win logic issue. I think sometimes people on all sides conflate “fitting things into a scheme you already accept on other grounds” with “good arguments for the scheme’s existence.” Here we are talking about the first thing and not the second; but I admit people do exactly what you claim they do all the time.
Anyway, thanks for your honest and thoughtful questions and comments — here is the address of the article I wrote in response:
http://www.apologeticprofessor.com/articles/2011/11/why-does-god-allow-doubt/