Posted by Jason on: 02.18.2009 /
In reading and discussing scripture I often find myself at a loss to understand the meaning of what I am reading. It isn’t that the words and teachings don’t make sense but that there is an underlying assumption that I have somehow missed. Talk of God’s grace and goodness confounds me because I have no basis other than the text and conversations to understand this and this is precicely where I find the confusion.
Religious language is rich with these assumptions. As a technical person I classify religious language as a kind of jargon. Jargon is wonderful. I love jargon. It is a way of passing information to others in your field quickly and efficiently. The problem that many have with jargon is that to requires a considerable amount of time and effort to comprehend and use. You need to be proficient in the jargon to use it. My lack of understanding of scripture may well be due to my lack of proficiency in the jargon of faith. However, I’ve been reading and talking about religion for long enough that I should have picked up the basics by now, no matter how obtuse I am.
There is another explanation supported by Relative Philosophy. Religious language, according to relativism doesn’t mean anythign at all. As it lacks any form of meaning there is no point in seeking answers to the questions that it raises. The God question is blithely dismissed as meaningless. Of course relativism can be contrasted by absolutism and monotheism can certainly be interpreted as a form of absolutism. So when Genesis 1: 1 says
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth
a philosopher can apply relativism to it and state that it is neither true nor false, that it is without meaning.
In philosophy relatism is hardly alone in dismissing the idea of God as lacking meaning. Logical Positivism does more or less the same by applying a kind of logic test to the text. Can an assertion be tested by an experiment or can it be true by definition? “God” does not fall into these categories and so can be dismissed as meaningless. There are no tests to verify the existence of God and God is not true by definition in the same way that “green is a colour” or “a square has four sides” is true. To a logical positivists the question is meaningless since it could not be answered true or false.
By extension any metaphysical discussion centred around God is also meaningless. I find this to be unhelpful as I don’t like to dismiss an argument until I’ve explored it thoroughly. Logical positivism and relativism in this regard make no effort to explore metaphysics but dismiss them utterly. Personally I like to know what I’m rejecting and actualyl enjoy tying myself up in knots before I realise that I should have rejected the question to begin with. That leaves us to explore what is meant by “God” and whether what we mean by “God” actually exists. Which is much more fun. However I can see how an apatheist could use logical positivism or relativism to dismiss these questions.
If you explore logical positivism you’ll quickly find A J Ayer’s objection to it.
We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express-that is, if he knows what observations would lead him, under certain conditions, to accept the proposition as being true, or reject is as being false.
“Freddie” acknowledged that no physical proof is ever completely conclusive. There are margins of error, false positives, experimental error, etc to contend with not to mention the philosophical idea of deceipt that cannot ever be fully rejected. If evidence through experimentation is not conclusive as an absolute then everything that we purport to know about the world becomes meaningless.
Those interested in the philosophy of science may also follow Richard Dawkins’ arguments on the improbability of God although he centres his point on evolution and ignores as irrelevant metaphysical questions. A J Ayer is much neater in his dismissal:
…There can be no way of proving that the existence of a god…is even probable.
“For if the existence of such a god were probable, then the proposition that he existed would be an empirical hypothesis. And in that case it would be possible to deduce from it, and other empirical hypotheses, certain experiential propositions which were not deducible from those other hypotheses alone.
“But in fact this is not possible…For to say that “God Exists” is to make a metaphysical utterance which cannot be either true or false.
Comment by: Stephan
1For someone who demands the scientific method you are very unscientific in this post. Simply because a philosopher says something has no meaning, it automatically has no meaning? Really?
And again, at the end, you come down to the question of proof. If proof is what you need then you will live the rest of your life as an atheist. I find it more enlightening to be open to possibilities rather than requiring proof.
Comment by: Chris C
2Jason said.
Wow, I know exactly what you mean Jason, because that was me before I became a Christian. ‘And me too’: that’s the wife talking who’s reading this over my shoulder and she’d been an Anglican for 20 years before she became a Christian. Something happens, in my case immediately, that just opens the scriptures up, things click into place, a deeper meaning is revealed, you see things you didn’t see before. I suppose you begin to experience the things it’s talking about, but it’s much more than that, difficult to describe really. It’s now the most important way that God speaks to me.
Yes, with grace especially, I guess it’s something you simply have to experience by drawing closer to God.
Comment by: Mike O
3Trying to understand spiritual things using physical means is like trying to watch television on a radio. The fact that a radio cannot pick up the video signal does not imply that the signal does not exist, or that it is irrelevant. It simply is not equipt to handle it.
That’s how it is with God. Man has a spirit seperate from his physical attributes. God is a spirit, not a physical entity, and it is through our spirit that we can sense him.
We have a radio station here in town that simulcasts the television news every evening. Because I am accustomed to watching the news on television, when I listen to the same news on the radio it is not difficult for me to understand the video components of what the people are actually doing (even though I can only hear them). I can “see” the weatherman standing in front of his map. I can “see” the news anchors sitting at their desk. When they play a “video” clip, I can “see” the interview taking place in my mind’s eye. All because I also have a visual connection with them that I don’t question any more.
If, however, someone who had never experienced television was listening to the same simulcast, how would I explain to them the video qualities of what we are both listening to? I wouldn’t be able to prove it, but that would make it no less true. Would they be right to dismiss it or call it irrelevant simply because it was beyond them?
And if they are only willing to pursue the concept of television from the perspective of radio, how serious are they, really, in finding the truth of it?
Radio is true. Television is true. They are not mutually exclusive, yet understanding one does not lead to an understanding of the other. Same with science and sprituality. They are both true, yet not mutually exclusive. And understanding one does not lead to understanding the other. But by understanding both seperately on their own merits, one can begin to see how they fit together quite nicely.
Comment by: Mike O
4The idea that something is meaningless simply because it isn’t proven or understood isn’t logical. “Meaninglessness” is a quality you are attributing to the thing not understood, when really, our understanding of something has no bearing on whether or not it has meaning.
I think, rather than saying something is meaningless, we should admit that we are really saying that, regardless of whether or not it has meaning, I don’t understand.
If you can’t get TV through a radio, and you’re fine with radio, that doesn’t make TV meaningless. It just means you no longer care if TV has meaning, because from the perspective of radio, TV doesn’t fit. And the radio still works. So, while TV still has meaning, you don’t care because it’s outside the radio paradigm.
Likewise, if there really is a God, and you don’t understand him, and you’re fine with that, that doesn’t make God meaningless. it just means you accept the paredigm that doesn’t require him. If there really is a God that exists as Christians (and other religions, I suppose) see him, then trust me … it means something whether or not you understand. People don’t have the ability to devalue God … if he exists.
Of course, the converse is also true. If there is no God, then you’re right and the concept of God truly is meaningless. The problem is, we don’t get to decide whether or not God exists - he either does or not. And whether God does or does not exist is what gives the concept of God meaning, not our attempts at understanding.
Comment by: Jason
5Stephan wrote
Not at all. I am merely providing a list of reasons that different atheists have for their unbelief. That said I have never heard a definition for God that provides meaning for the term. This leaves me at a loss even to begin the exploration in what benefits such a belief has.
I certainly accept the likelihood that I will live my entire life as an atheist and I feel no need to be open to all possibilities anymore than you do. I assume that you aren’t open to the possibility of Zeus being real or unicorns existing?
Chris, I don’t know what to say. Thanks…I think.
Mike O wrote
So you’re saying that I don’t have the right receiver to pick up “God signals”? Funnily enough Greta Christina wrote about this recently in her post Good Arguments for God where she says
which is an interesting idea but then why are there different ideas about what God is for different religions and believers? Is everyone’s reception a little fuzzy but atheist’s aerials have blown down?
I think I’ve tortured that metaphor enough.
I agree but it is the case that theists use God as an explanation but as an explanation it has no meaning without understanding what God means. As an example I might explain to someone that their email problem is related to a bad IP lease from a DHCP server. Without understanding what an IP address is or what a DHCP server does the sentence is meaningless even though I’ve explained the cause. Before we discuss what God does and how we should go about worshipping him and obeying his commands we need (or at least I need) to understand what God is at least in a basic way. Until then I have no common ground to understand the explanations provided for divine actions and events. They are literally explanations without meaning.