Reconciling belief, scripture and ‘necessity’

28 January 2007

This is something that I’ve been wanting to write for a long time, and it concerns how theists who seek to justify their faith in the traditional idea of an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful personal deity with their scripture, and the philosophical arguments that they use to justify that faith. I’m talking here about the traditional god ideas of christianity, although I expect the same principles could be applied to any theistic religion.

There seem to be (generally) three different kinds of believer:

the ad hoc follower – ignores religion for most of the time, but herd together when their sacred ideas are threatened;
the fundamentalist – everything in their scripture is 100% true, even the bits that contradict other bits; and
the theologian – who justifies their belief with convoluted philosophical arguments and extra-scriptural literature and ideas.

Of course, there is a crossover in attitudes here, and it’s unlikely that any individual can be seen to be firmly in just one of the above categories, so I won’t be so presumptuous as to assume that this is the case.

There also seems to be an innate sense of superiority within the relationships of these groups to each of the others, which appears to look something like this:

Relationships of believers

The above is obviously rather simplified, but complexity in the relationships between these groups only adds support to the point I will make later.

The ad hoc follower may say that their faith gives them strength and support, allowing them to deal with the day-to-day tribulations of being human and living in society. The fundamentalist will often claim that their scripture is true because it says that it’s true and that any other ideas are not only wrong but, commonly, “evil”. The theologian may claim that god is necessary for the universe to exist, and so the god must exist, usually with some semantic jiggery-pokery.

The primary motivational factor of the ad hoc follower seems to be simple belief. They seem to eschew dogmatic literalist interpretations of scripture if it sounds like utter nonsense, or if it contravenes their own moral standpoint (e.g. stoning unruly children). Church attendance may be minimal, if at all. Mention of their faith may be almost non-existent outside of the church community or of family or friends. They’re unlikely to ‘witness’ to those that they don’t know, although invitations to join them in visits to their church during times of personal distress are not uncommon. When praying for guidance, they are not usually unimpressed that their prayers may go unanswered.

For the fundamentalist, scriptural purity seems to be the main principle. Dogmatism is rife here, even going so far as to creatively interpret individual scriptural passages to match their own attitudes and encompass a greater authority than the passages themselves, in their purely textual form, rightly allow. Contradictions in scripture are excused and, where it’s just plain wrong, completely ignored. Fundamentalists are the most aggressive kind of theist, often resorting to ad hominem attacks, misrepresentation, lies, slander and even violence to promote their ideas over those of anyone else. Witnessing is commonplace: when rebuffed, can frequently be seen to become belligerent and antagonistic. Prayers of the fundamentalist will be seen as being answered, even if the outcome belies the prayer. The fundamentalist will often zealously attack scientific evidence or theories that contradict scripture, often amounting to “la-la-la not listening” attitudes even when the evidence is in plain sight.

The theologian, on the other hand, seems to take an allegorical outlook on most accepted scripture (if not ignoring it almost completely), usually has a willingness to believe and takes any other evidence that they can find, muddles it up in their head and comes out with ‘…therefore god exists’. The acceptance of the existence of a god doesn’t necessarily seem to warrant the unwavering servitude or prayer as defined through scripture. A common theme here seems to be “there must be something in it”. The theologian may use philosophical discourse to back up their claims, using phrases such as “contingency” and “necessary”. Science may be used to back up arguments, although gaps in knowledge are often used as a breeding ground for “yeah, but what if” postulations, often in conjunction with using the “everybody knows” fallacy. Epistemology (the theory of knowledge, distinguishing justified belief from opinion) is commonly argued, based on complicated statements that often contradict what we see around us as the influence of faith.

And here we get to the nub of the matter: who’s right? Which of these groups is hitting the nail on the head and seeing the “truth” clearly? Which idea of god, that they all claim to see so very clearly, is the one that actually is? Each of these groups comes up with interesting and convoluted arguments to support their individual faith positions, but where is the actual evidence? Where is the corroboration that supports their claims of “truth”?

Obviously they all think they are right, otherwise they would believe differently, perhaps as the others do. But thinking they are right, and knowing they are right are two very different things. How do these varieties of theist reconcile their ideas with not only the lack of evidence to support their arguments, but also with each other?

I will write more about each of these three ideas later, pointing out the fallacies that lie therein, but I’ll leave this topic now with one small point that I’d like to make: when I asked above “who’s right?” there was also another possible answer that you may have overlooked:

None of the above.

Possibly related posts:

Belief-based politics (UK edition) ...

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Tags: bad arguments/logical fallacies, bible, christianity, dogma, literalism, scripture, theonasm

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