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Tim Keller - "Belief in an Age of Skepticism" - Lecture 2008-03-05
Reasons for God
I) Why important?
II) How does it work?
III) What are those reasons?
I) Why important? (1:40-8:10)
Important for skeptic because:
- Robust orthodox belief in God is not diminishing but is in fact believing, despite the belief that as society became more sophisticated/advanced, less interest in God (secularization thesis)
-- in Asia/Africa, Christianity/Islam expanding like crazy - ex. Korea 1-40%, China more Christians than in US, 2 million US Episcopalians, 17 million in Nigeria
- in pluralistic society, in order to get around, must put ourselves into each others' shoes and understand why we/they believe
- new atheism (Dawkins) - respect for religion is bad
Important for believer because:
- if you admit and deal with doubts, your foundation is strengthened when troubles come
II) How does it work? (8:10-15:20)
Three reasons:
1) intellectual - see part 3
2) interpreted personal experience
ex. tragedies
- interpretation 1 - "I can't handle life alone, I need God"
- interpretation 2 - "I don't want a God who lets this happen"
ex. made it to the top
- interpretation 1 - "Who needs God?"
- interpretation 2 - "I've made it to the top and I still feel empty"
3) social
- sociology of knowledge - your community (ppl you need and admire) determines what you want to believe
- "If you were born in Madagascar, you wouldn't be a Christian!" = I have thought things out, you are a product of your environment.
-- response: "If *you* were born in Madagascar, you wouldn't be a secular pluralist."
Not fair to say "I'm rational and you're socially conditioned."
III) What are those reasons?
Three Rungs on a Ladder
1) takes as much faith to disbelieve in God as to believe in God
2) it takes *more* faith to disbelieve in God as to believe in God
3) you can reason to the point of probability, it takes personal involvement/commitment to see life change
Rung #1 (15:20-36:50)
Arguments for non-existence of God
1) "senseless and pointless" evil and suffering
- good God not powerful enough to stop it
- God powerful enough to stop it but chooses not to
- therefore, no all-powerful and all-good God
Doesn't work because: how do you know it's pointless and senseless? How do you know God doesn't have a good reason for it that you can't think of?
Example: "Look in this pup tent, are there any St. Bernards?" Can be seen. "Are there any parameciums
2) believers in God are so horrible
- human heart can take any philosophy or view of God and use it as a warrant for violence ("I have the truth and you don't so you're a second class citizen")
-- ex. Buddhism -> Shintoism -> Japan in WWII
-- ex. Christianity -> Crusades, shooting abortion doctors
-- ex. Islam -> terrorism
-- ex. atheism -> Communism -> Russian killing fields (If I can get away with a bad act, I can get away with it, no judgment day)
3) agnostic approach
- 5 blind men who come up on elephant and describe it diff ways, so no one has full picture of God - we are all blind men!
-- analogy breaks down b/c it assumes the storyteller can know that all the blind men are blind, and can see the whole elephant - having superior knowledge
-- appearance of humility, but it is an arrogant claim to exclusive truth
- instead, say "maybe one of these folks is right"
4) "you have to prove God to me"
- this is a leap of faith that God is something that you can prove
- makes sense for a Creator God not to fit into the universe
- ex. there is no non-circular way to prove that your memory works, can't prove a belief in the inherent human dignity
- ex. when Soviets sent first cosmonaut to space, felt that meant no God. CS Lewis' response: can't relate to God like a person on 1st story to person on 3rd story, rather like Hamlet to Shakespeare (creation to creator) - Hamlet can't figure anything out about Shakespeare by running around backstage, but only if Shakespeare writes something about himself into the play
Rung #2 (36:50-51:25)
Argument: The things we see and know in the world make more sense if there is a God than if there is not
3 things that make more sense w/ God
1) "fine tuning principle" / anthropic principle
- very specific natural "dials" in order for human life to occur - 1/1 trillion chance that world could support life
- Dawkins' argument - multitude of alternate universes, ours is just chance
-- counterargument - dealing 20 straight aces, we don't believe that it's chance
- would anyone base their life on a 1/trillion chance?
2) love and beauty
- alternate explanation: generated by chemicals in brain solely for purpose of furthering your genetic code
- feels significant, but it's not - in the end, whether you're loving or cruel, makes no difference
3) human rights
- can't prove it, not self-evident - why?
a) there is God and God created us in his image, so we're sacred
b) nature
- doesn't work. Ex. woman who lived by creek - evolution loves death more than you or me, we value individual supremely, but nature values life not at all. Can't be produced from a sea of amino acids and then turn and shake fist at it
- nature = survival of strongest, which is opposite of human rights
c) society creates/defines human rights
- wrong b/c then that means genocide is only wrong b/c we say so, and majority can exploit minority, which is not human rights
Rung #3 (51:25-56:36)
Analogy: falling off a cliff, see a branch
If I grab it, it may hold me up, it may not, you may be certain, but you don't know until you grab it
Weak faith in a strong object is infinitely more important than strong faith in a weak object b/c it is the object of faith that is more important
Analogy: hiring
Can only do so much background check, etc. but need to hire to know if you are the right person
Christianity is only religion where God becomes a person - why important?
Analogy: Dorothy Sayers' detective books - she wrote herself into the book and rescues the characters b/c she loves them so much
God saw his creation, fell in love with us, and wrote Himself into the play to rescue us
Tim Keller - "Belief in an Age of Skepticism" - Q&A 2008-03-05
1) 0:00-4:00 - Dawkins' "rotating teacup around Earth" argument - can't prove it, can't prove God = "Verification Principle"
A: You can't empirically prove the Verification Principle. Science only works on empirical objects, but you can't base your life on empiricism.
2) 4:40-6:40 Joseph Campbell quote that God transcends existence and so we can't know him
A: Right in honoring the size/scope of God, wrong in saying that God can't be described/fit into categories of what we know
3) 6:40-11:30 Francis Collins talk about evolution and Christianity co-existing
A: Christians are on all different sides of the spectrum, but to determine Christianity, the question really is - did Jesus rise from the dead? Diff viewpoints include theistic evolution, progressive creationism, etc. Try reading The Secular Revolution by Christian Smith about the secularization of higher institutions.
4) 11:30-18:40 How is Christianity different from Judaism, Islam, and other religions?
A: Every other religion has a prophet that says "I am here to help you find God." Only Christianity has a founder who says, "I am God come to find you." Christ makes unbelievable claims - ex. "I saw Satan fall from heaven," "For years I have been sending you prophets and wise men and you killed them all," "Before Abraham existed, I am". Christianity will either be better or worse (fraudulent) than other religions, but cannot be the same.
So, check out whether Christianity is true:
- are Gospels basically reliable? Check out Jesus and the Eyewitnesses - Gospels not oral traditions but oral histories from eyewitnesses (who remain in Gospel to authenticate Gospel)
- did Jesus rise from the dead? Check out The Resurrection of the Son of God - NT Wright - ex. 1st ppl to see risen Christ are women, who were of such low status that their testimony is not admissible evidence in court - so it wouldn't make sense to write them into the document, unless it's true.
5) 18:40-24:30 What does it mean for you to be Christian?
A: Original way in college - intellectually wrestling with evil, suffering, etc.; personally saw weaknesses in experiences in college; socially saw Christians who didn't care about justice and non-Christians who did. Finally met Christians who did believe in justice. 2002 had thyroid cancer, am I going to die? While recuperating, read Resurrection of the Son of God, read everything while confronting death, took me down to a new level of certainty intellectually (while already immersed personally). If the resurrection is true, then the universe is an ocean of beauty and glory, and we're locked temporarily into a window of darkness and evil.
6) 24:30-30:40 What does belief and faith mean?
A: When I'm falling off a cliff and I see a branch that can save me, I may reason that it is strong enough to save me, but I need to grab it - I need to act on my reason - for it to be effective. In personal relationship with God, He may tell you things that you don't like to hear. If God is truly not of this world, then His Word will offend every culture on earth.
7) 30:40-35:00 Why value philosophical level of reasoning about evil instead of the "real" level of suffering we personally experience?
A: The struggle may be personal and people hide it behind the intellectual/philosophical. Goal is to strip away the philosophical level in order to cleanly deal with the personal level. Christian faith is only one where God says he loves us enough to subject himself to suffering, and can identify with us in suffering - losing a son, being betrayed by friends, etc. Now, I don't know why evil and suffering are there, but I know what it isn't - it isn't b/c He doesn't love us or doesn't care.
8) 35:00-39:10 Christianity is based on racial/cultural background - could there be a better one less hindered by it?
A: Christianity is on its way to becoming culture-neutral. Hindus primarily Indian. Buddhism primarily Asian. Muslims primarily Middle Eastern. Christian demographic center has migrated from Jewish to Greek to Eastern Europe (Armenia) to Western Europe to North America to China. With each migration, each culture influences/transforms the religion (ex. Greek philosophy of Trinity). Average evangelical Christian is now non-white. Now, Asian culture will be transformed by Christianity and will change Christian theology.
9) 39:10-45:15 How can you condemn other religions coming from other cultures and backgrounds to hell?
A: I don't condemn other people, I ask, "What do you do with the fact that Jesus claimed to be Son of God?" He's either the Way, or not. Christians don't know what happens to infants who die, and it's not my business. Christians don't believe you go to heaven b/c you're good, but b/c you know you need God's mercy and you admit your moral failure. The ethics between Christianity and other religions is similar, but the way we connect to God is different. We say the only way to heaven I know about is what I've been told - that I can't. Americans get the most bent out of shape about this b/c of Western Enlightenment thought, democracy, everyone gets a vote - rest of world has no problem with "one true religion" idea. Everyone in hell is there b/c they want to be - they want to be their own savior and lord, and they don't want to be in heaven with God pushing them around. People go to hell b/c they want to be, people go to heaven b/c Jesus is there and they want to be with him.
5 comments:
Byron brought up this issue - in question #9 of the Q&A, do you agree with Keller's assertion that those people in hell do not want to come out? How does this jive with the description of hell as a place of gnashing and weeping of teeth?
I went to see Keller the day before when he was up here at Cal, and I was quite impressed by him and his intellect and wealth of knowledge. Definitely good stuff. By reading your outline (and hearing from a friend), sounds like he adapted some of the Q&A stuff from here into his talk over at Stanford too.
What you bring up reminds me of the chapter on hell in Lee Strobel's Case for Faith (why would a loving God send people to hell? ) in which he writes similar things to what Keller believes. Strobel also states that God sends people to where they want to go, which is God demonstrating his love in granting people's desire - whether it's to be with Him or not. He states people in hell wanted to go there, and although my memory of the chapter is a little faded, I think he would agree that people wouldn't want to come out.
I won't say that I have a strong opinion/belief on his point of view, but I can see how that may be true. One way of thinking about it is: if people in hell were never saved and therefore never experienced the love of God and have that change their lives, thus never allowing God's presence to dwell in them, then they are not truly aware of what they do not have. They wouldn't want to go out of hell because they aren't aware of (outside of a more knowledge-based understanding) what they chose not to have. I know that can be picked apart a little because it's not like everyone in hell is completely ignorant of what Christianity and being with God is supposedly like, so they may have a desire to get out because of what they've seen/they know but not personally experienced. Hell is described as the absence of God's presence, so how would people in hell compare their current state versus being with God?
Another perspective (among many others I'm sure) is just what Keller said - how people don't want to be with Jesus (implying they are aware of what they could have had) and instead want to be lord of themselves. If this is true, then I'd agree that people don't want to come out. In the end, I think it comes down to whether people in hell are aware of what being in heaven is like versus being in hell, and if so, to what extent, which would possibly make people not want to be in hell.
I think the description of hell as a place of gnashing and weeping of teeth is in the context of being a follower of Christ versus an outside perspective. To us, those who are in Christ and live with God's presence in us, would of course see hell in this way - because we cannot imagine life without God's presence after accepting Him and personally experiencing what it's like to have him versus our old life disconnected from Him. That's how I see it - that to us believers hell is a place we never want to be near , because to be in a place where God's presence does not dwell (at least that is my understanding of hell) would as if to return to our old lives before we accepted Him.
Haha this is kind of long, but I found Keller's talk really interesting and definitely made me think, so it was really cool to see your post on it after a month. Definitely had my own set of thoughts too on the topics you brought up.
Good comment Calvin. I listened to Keller's Cal lecture off a podcast too, and it seemed less structured than his Stanford lecture.
One other thought regarding the Bible's description of hell is Jesus' description of the rich man and Lazarus in Lk 16:19-31, which on initial reading seems to be a story of the rich man wanting to get out of agony - but upon second reading, he never requests to leave (asks Lazarus to come to him to give some relief). However, he does request Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his family not to come to the place of torment.
great stuff. i see that cal went to the one in CAL, while you, boboli, went across the bay.... *shakes head*
Abe, I'm pretty sure that this "Calvin" is someone from my old youth group who's now in undergrad at Cal, not the Cal we know...
I'm also assuming this is the Abe that I know :-). How you doing?
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