While I do believe in a Deity, it’s not exactly the Thomistic god of Christian orthodoxy. I find panentheism to be quite intriguing. Don’t really have a clue about the Trinity. Even on the days when I could sincerely sign my name at the bottom of the Athanasian creed, I still don’t consider the doctrine to be immensely important to Christianity, at least, insofar as it impacts one in living righteously. To be honest, most days I consider it to be a pretty useless and antiquated obstacle to the Christian faith. It is only because I am such a fan of the theologian Jürgen Moltmann (for whom the importance of the Trinity shows through in his social trinitarianism) that I have not entirely jettisoned the doctrine of the Trinity from my repertoire of half-hearted theological beliefs.
While I claim ignorance regarding what happens when we die, I must say that I definitely don’t subscribe to the idea of hell. Even though I did believe in it during my teenage years, I now find the idea of eternal conscious retributive punishment to be an abhorrent thing to believe in. I do believe in some sort of existence after death, but I am somewhat skeptical of the idea of an incorporeal soul part of us that survives death and flies through a tunnel of light to heaven. I find the idea of a future resurrection of the body to be a much more holistic and meaningful concept in this modern scientific age regarding the question of life-after-death.
Who was Jesus of Nazareth? I think the virgin birth of Jesus is a later accretion to the message being proclaimed about him and probably doesn’t have any basis in history, but that seems to be a not so uncommon view amongst Christian theologians nowadays. Was he the eternal second person of the Trinity incarnate in the flesh? I thought so for many years, but now, even on my best of days I have a hard time swallowing that one. Historical research has given us no reason to consider that he ever claimed such a thing. Church tradition eventually hammered it all out over the first half a millenia, but I really don’t know what to do with church tradition so that isn’t helpful. I have no problem saying something like “Jesus is divine”, but it would be disingenuous of me to say that without the disclaimer that I haven’t made up my mind as to exactly what I mean by that. Does Jesus’ divinity stem from a pre-existence as deity? Was it something only conferred upon him at the resurrection? Or something else entirely? I simply just don’t know.
I like Christianity because of the narrative I find in the Gospels. Jesus teaches and lives out the good news of the kingdom of God, bringing hope and joy to the marginalized and poor of the world, which then climaxes in his unjust crucifixion at the hands of the powerful. This bleak picture is then further intensified in Mark’s record of Jesus’ cry of dereliction on the cross. But did the resurrection actually occur or was it just a figment of the imagination of some disciples? As I’ve said before on this blog, I don’t think there is any more of a reason to accept the historicity of the resurrection any moreso than any other supernatural event in antiquity, but I hope that the resurrection occurred and was indeed the Deity saying fully “Yes!” to Jesus, as the resurrection provides the best answer to the question of theodicy that I have encountered.
It’s been ten years since I first became a Christian (I was raised Catholic until then but that doesn’t count). I went from a 15 year old teenager who was certain of everything I believed about the Bible (e.g. its inerrancy and inspiration) and theology (e.g. pre-trib dispensationalism, seven-day creationism, everyone-is-going-to-hell-except-conservative-Christians, etc), to a 25 year old married man whose knowledge on Christianity and world religions has exponentially grown over the past few years, yet who, almost paradoxically, is now full of doubts instead of certainties. And I wouldn’t have it any other way!
Very interesting post, particularly your ideas about life after death. You said that you don’t believe in hell, but you also said that you think there is some life after death. I’m curious why you think there is some kind of life after death. What makes that seem more plausible than there just being nothing at all?
You also said that you like the idea of a resurrection of the body. Does that only apply to recently dead? What about someone who has pretty much decayed away, or someone who was cremated and scattered?
I believe there is some sort of life-after-death due to encounters of the supernatural I have experienced.
I do not believe that one’s body needs to be intact in order for one to experience resurrection. A deity could resurrect those who died thousands of years ago and whose bodies have long since decayed into its constituent particles and spread across the globe.
Interesting. When I read your original point in the post it sounded like you were saying that the diety would put the body back together. Is this correct? Like, even if the body has decayed and spread across the globe, are you saying that the diety would gather up all of those parts and put them back together?
If so, then what if some of those parts had belonged to multiple people? (bodies decay and become food for a plant which becomes food for another person lets say). If not, then what do you mean when you say “resurrection of the body”?
You’ve just described my veiws precicely. We started with the same view and currently share the same view. You managed to make the change sooner than I did and have a much deeper education. I was raised with the same conservative doctrine and it took until my late 30s to start to move to where I am now. It hasn’t been a smooth transition for me or for my conservative Christian friends and family that have to put up with my struggles but I’m starting to embrace the doubts and not force the bible or God to be what tradition forces them to be.
Yup, embracing the doubts is not the bad thing I always thought it was when I was younger.
I definitely agree with you that the resurrection can never be proven through historical measures, nor can any miracle. What strikes me, however, and make its near impossible to just dismiss the resurrection as just another antiquity miracle is the language that the disciples, particularly Paul, used to describe Christ post resurrection. Using Larry hurtado as my guide, the earliest Christians worshipped Jesus in several different ways and Paul had a powerful religious experience that changed his life devoting it to Christ. For me personally, these radical beliefs during second temple Judaism, makes it hard to believe that Jesus was just a failed dead messiah. Something happened that day and it was powerful enough to change the disciples lives forever. What do you think about the strength of these life changing religious experiences, whether one believes theyre true or not, that the disciples had with the resurrected Christ and your belief in the resurrection? Would you agree that Its not evidence persay for a miracle but events in history that makes one sit and ponder what really happened that day?
Also, in light of evolution where death is a natural part of the cycle of life, is belief in an afterlife really viable? Or is that irrelevant because the resurrection of Christ, if true, actually changes everything? Thanks alot
“is the language that the disciples, particularly Paul, used to describe Christ post resurrection.”
Sounds pretty powerful, is there any chance you have an example of such language?
I agree with you. Undoubtedly there was something that happened that was powerful enough to change Paul’s life in such a dramatic fashion, as well as the disciples. It is entirely possible, though, that it was a very real hallucination, which could have life-altering effects. It does make you wonder, though, what really happened.
In response to your other question, I don’t really see how death being a natural part of the life-cycle could be seen as invalidating the notion of an afterlife.
Hausdorff, No that is not what I was saying. A belief in a future resurrection of the body does not necessitate the belief that the resurrected body is comprised of the actual atomic components (electrons, neutrons, etc) that the body possessed when it died. The reason I mentioned “resurrection of the body” and said it is more holistic and meaningful than the belief in an incorporeal part of us that survives death is due to our modern understanding of human nature, more specifically, how our brain is an essential component to our existence and to who we are as a person, rather than some ethereal spirit part of us.
I see, so perhaps the resurrected person would get different matter that would effectively be the same as what they had before, but it doesn’t have to be the exact same matter? Is that more what you mean? That makes a lot more sense than the picture I had in my head before.
Actually, all the relevant data from psychology show that there really is an incorporeal part of us that has the potential to survive bodily death and that there is indeed a two-way interaction between this incorporeal part and the brain. Now is not the time to give up on dichotomy!
“all the relevant data from psychology show that there really is an incorporeal part of us that has the potential to survive bodily death”
Care to cite an example? I’ve never seen anything like this.
Hausdorff,
Sure, check out Chris Carter’s “Science and Psychic Phenomena” (formerly titled “Parapsychology and the Skeptics”) as well as “Science and the Near-Death Experience.” Both books succeed in showing that there is oodles of good data that demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that humans indeed have non-physical minds that experience such phenomena as telepathy (e.g. the sense of being stared) and out of body experiences and that none this contradicts our most up to date scientific understanding of the world. Moreover, Carter successfully argues that the reason why this data is not more widely known is that awareness of it has been suppressed by people whose worldview is contradicted by its implications and that all the objections that have been raised against the best data don’t hold up under close scrutiny.
Speaking as a professional mathematician who is employed at an elite level American university, a reductionist materialistic worldview that understands the world and the human mind in purely physical/materialist terms has been as thoroughly disproved empirically as anything else I know. Skeptics who reject the data and arguments that Carter puts forward in those books are no less shameless than the dogmatic young earth creationists who stubbornly hold on to their beliefs in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.
Thanks for the reference residentoftartarus. Any chance you have any references that are a bit smaller than a whole book? You said he showed that there is oodles of data, is there perhaps a study that he references that I could look at or something? I’d rather not get into a whole new book right now.
Hausdorff,
You could look at Sheldrake’s research on telephone telepathy and dogs that know when their owners are coming home (both mentioned in the first book I referenced) which are freely available at his website http://www.sheldrake.org. You could also try to find the latest meta-analysis that Radin published on the Ganzfeld database.sometime back in 2010-2011.
Nevertheless, I would recommend that you get Carter’s books and spend some time with them and not settle for individual studies because the philosophical issues raised by these sorts of studies not to mention the response they’ve generated from so-called skeptics are sufficiently complex that they demand book-length treatment.
Hope that helps.
Yes that is very helpful. Thank you.
I have made some bookmarks and will add this to my (ever growing) list of things to check out. Assuming the studies show some promise I will consider checking out the book. However, with limited time it is quite possible I won’t ever get around to it. I will absolutely make sure I at least get to checking out some studies though.
Hausdorff,
Lastly, here’s a link to a nice talk that Sheldrake gave at Google a while back on the extended mind where he summarizes some of his research (with Q&A at the end): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnA8GUtXpXY
excellent, a talk is great, I’ll watch that first
I find it hard to believe that “all the relevant data from psychology” shows there is an incorporeal part to us. Nevertheless, I will give that Christ Carter book a read sometime over the summer. I am currently reading a book on the brain and consciousness. It’s a fascinating field of research that I wish I knew more about.
Just to clarify what I said in my post… I don’t decidedly reject the idea of an incorporeal part of us that survives death. I am just skeptical of it and so don’t put a lot of stock in it. My view on the matter is aptly summed up in the following quote by Moltmann:
The immortality of the soul is an opinion – the resurrection of the dead is a hope. The first is a trust in something immortal in the human being, the second is a trust in the God who calls into being the things that are not, and makes the dead live.
Diglot,
I am happy to see that you plan on reading Carter’s books sometime over the summer. I promise that you will find them to be both stimulating and challenging.
Speaking for myself, after thoroughly investigating these matters I have very little doubt that human beings are indeed a combination of a physical body and a non-physical soul and that the latter part will almost certainly survive death and experience some kind of conscious afterlife. For all intents and purposes, traditional Christian doctrine has been vindicated on these points in my opinion.
residentoftartarus: I have watched the video, I wrote a blog post summarizing my thoughts about it here. The guy definitely has done some interesting work. He has some data that is consistent with his ideas, crazy as they seem to be on the surface. I’m definitely intrigued and I do plan to look into his stuff more. However, based on what I saw there, saying that
“all the relevant data from psychology show that there really is an incorporeal part of us that has the potential to survive bodily death and that there is indeed a two-way interaction between this incorporeal part and the brain.”
is such an overstatement. Even if you give him the benefit of the doubt on experimental design, he is a long way from proving that we have a soul.
Hausdorff,
Glad to read that you found the presentation to be intriguing!
With respect to my assessment of the relevant data, I don’t think it was an overstatement as pretty much all of the researchers who conduct experiments and/or gather data in order to test the validity of various psychological phenomena that can’t be physically explained regularly come back with positive results. The net effect of all this work (not just that of Sheldrake) is that for all intents and purposes it conclusively demonstrates the existence of an incorporeal soul.
Have you not read Allison’s essay “Resurrecting Jesus”? Even the exceedingly cautious Allison admits that there are more reasons to accept the historicity of the resurrection (at least two on his count) than that of any old claim from antiquity.
On a more reflective note, what do you think is the source of your latest doubts? Is it the fact that your education has exposed the naivete of your boyhood faith and that as a result you increasingly find it difficult to hang on to that faith or is it something else?
I have been meaning to read Allison’s book Resurrecting Jesus for some time now. I have thoroughly enjoyed everything I’ve read so far by him, and that volume looks especially good since it’s on the resurrection.
Regarding the source of my doubts… you hit the nail on the head. In becoming a Christian ten years ago, I completely lacked the ability of critical thinking. I was, however, an avid reader, and so I believed everything I read on the Christian faith. Unfortunately, the types of books I read were things like Josh McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict. It has only been in the last few years I have read serious academic works on Christianity, and since I am actually quite open-minded and more than willing to change my mind on issues, it has led to me altering my beliefs as necessary.
Diglot,
Yeah, Allison is the best, I’ve yet to read anyone else who manages to achieve the level of objectivity and caution that Allison brings to his work. It’s a refreshing break from the majority of scholars who peddle their theories with what I think is an unwarranted confidence (e.g. Thom Stark in Human Faces of God).
I’m sorry to hear about how the epistemological bottom fell out from underneath your feet as you progressed in your studies, you may not regret your current doubts but such is never a fun thing to experience. It’s a real shame that conservative Christian culture encourages people to have such unrealistically high epistemological expectations about their Christian faith and then base them on putatively inerrant scriptures that aren’t so. Speaking for myself, once again, I’ve slowly been able to reconstruct the epistemological foundations of my own faith but it has admittedly taken a lot of work and forced me to delve into various branches of knowledge that I never thought I would explore, but it can be done. Long story short, I’ve discovered to my own satisfaction that the heart of the Christian narrative is indeed quite likely to be true so hang in there!
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“Even on the days when I could sincerely sign my name at the bottom of the Athanasian creed, I still don’t consider the doctrine to be immensely important to Christianity, at least, insofar as it impacts one in living righteously.” It seems more a hindrance to living righteously. Once you hold Jesus to be God then how could he be tempted? How can he be our example? How can we live up to that? The reason he lived such a good life was because he was God; it was just natural; he didn’t have to try. If, however, you take a strictly monotheistic approach (only the Father is God) and then an adoptionist approach to Christology (Jesus adopted as the Messiah at his baptism), then Jesus is able to be an example and you are able to imitate it. It seems to me the doctrine of the Trinity was engineered to make Christianity a cult more pleasing to the immoral pagan masses. I wonder who would do such a thing…perhaps an Emperor of the Roman empire…but not emperor was involved in making Jesus into God except the perfectly pious Constantine who presided over the Nicene council that wrote the Nicene creed declaring Jesus to be very God of very God, the same emperor who was practically worshiped as a god of sorts himself by the assembled bishops….but surely Constantine would have never done anything that wasn’t on the up and up.
Curiously, two more doctrines (original sin and predestination) don’t hit our radar until the Donatist controversy where a group breaks off from Catholicism because the Catholics are allowing priests who deserted Christianity during persecution to return to their posts (now on the payroll of the empire), so its a case of opposing both traitor priests and the merger of the church with the state, and who pray tell becomes the darling of the imperial church that persecutes those Donatists? Oh, look, its our good buddy Augustine of Hippo!