Belief and Reason

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” Albert Einstein

“There is too much thinking in modern Christianity.” [Line from a Reformed Church magazine I read years ago.]

Sometimes it seems to me that people check their brains at the door when it comes to religion, in particular the so-called controversy between science and religion. What conflict? There is absolutely no reason for it. One researcher believes it goes back to the reformation when one of the rallying cries against Roman Catholicism was “sola scripture”, meaning by scripture alone. It was an attack against the hierarchical authority of the church versus the primacy of scripture in religious thinking. But that did not make them literalists or fundamentalists.

One of the things I have always enjoyed about Christianity is its sense, its rationality, even when it seems a bit convoluted. Perhaps I was born a theologian, perhaps we all are, but as homo sapiens, we are thinkers, we have the ability to reason and that ability gave us our unique ecological niche on this planet. Thinking is a good thing. Thus the idea that you can trap God in the Bible to me seems irrational. It is bibliolatry, turning scripture into an idol rather than a witness to God’s activity in this world as seen by people.

Let me make my own position clear at this point. I believe that the Bible is inspired by God. By that I mean that I believe the Spirit of God inspired the writers to write what they did, but that does not imply God dictated the writing. I also believe that inspiration is found in other religious writings, and in modern writing. As a preacher, it was what I relied upon to create sermons for congregations.

Now let’s see how the populace views scripture. The following graphs come from a 2007 Gallup poll. I have read higher numbers for literalists, but these were the ones I could validate the best.

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Religions, it seems to me should revolve around searches for truth. Jesus claimed to be the truth, the life and the way. Jesus also certainly took on the literalists of his day; the strict interpreters of the law which they used as a club over others; not unlike some fundamentalists today. But Jesus was constantly telling stories as means of helping people discover truths in these stories for themselves. Rarely did he explain his stories (parables), but left it up to his listeners to discover those truths for themselves. It is a great educational process. It is this openness and trust in people’s intelligence that has made my recent reading of Einstein’s book (see previous article) so appealing.

Another study I looked at recently made the connection between “constitutional originality” and literalism. By constitutional originality I believe the authors meant strict constructionists of the constitution as most conservatives are. I don’t put a lot of stock in this theory but on a grass roots level I understand the connection among the populace. Ah, here comes the political part.

I am amazed at the politics I hear in relation to the Iowa caucus and around the country. There appears to be a similar phenomenon of people checking their brains at the door when it comes to politics. The founding fathers were thinkers, men of reason, thought and reflection. They disagreed with each other, they had their share of cultural blinders, and were often elitist, but they reasoned together to come up with a government which would allow people to live freely and in community. If you listen to modern political debate, reason seems to be limited and emotional sound bites replace them. Truth does not seem to be sought rather falsehoods and misrepresentations of opponents seem to be the norm.

Ah, it probably happened at the country’s beginning as well, but certainly not to this extent; well there was a duel or two, which was not terribly rational.

The media is also more salacious rather than helpful in describing our candidates. It is very hard to be a well educated reasonable voter today given our methods and the behind the scenes maneuvering of special interests. It is how we got to become an oligarchy, government by the few (the rich) instead of a democracy.

God has given us brains to reason and think and to find truth. God has given us the responsibility to care for the planet and for each other. These are the gifts God has given us. I don’t care where you are politically but I do care that you use your God given gifts in making political choices.