I had the luxury recently of re-reading the paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", in which Alan Turing first poses what has come to be known as the Turing Test. In short, he suggests that, if a machine can communicate sufficiently well that a person could not identify it as a machine, then that machine may as well be considered intelligent.
Of course, you can't read this paper without also reading "Minds, Brain, and Programs", where John Searle establishes that Chinese Room thought experiment. In effect, Searle describes how syntactic manipulation without any awareness of semantic content (effectively all any computer obeying a program is capable of) eliminates the potential for understanding. Thus, he claims that no digital computer could ever be considered intelligent.
These are points that have been debated to death. It want to take a second to focus on a point made by each thinker that I haven't seen discussed as widely.
First, Turing describes how a machine such as could pass his test might "evolve" its own intelligence. He suggests that we could create a program that effectively mimics the learning mechanisms of the brain (neural nets of a sort) and then train it through carrot and stick to respond appropriately. This, he thinks, sidesteps the question of a computer simply running a normal man-made algorithm.
Searle, for his part, claims that the separability of hardware and software prevents this from really being the case. Mental states and mental representations, he says, are at least partly the consequence of normal brain function. They are not something that the brain simply executes.
I really think that Searle is right in this instance, and I think it comes down to biology and necessity. Suppose that we could perfectly recreate the brain's ability to learn: to acquire language and to exhibit intentional, causal attitudes in interaction with the world around us. For what reason would a computer utilize these mechanisms?
Intelligent beings use our brains and our ability to create mental representations and constructs out of necessity for survival. It is the natural order of all organisms to grow, decay, consume, and excrete (and, ideally, multiply at some point). In order to do so, we need to interact with the world around us. When you're an infant, your choice (conscious or not) is clear: cry or die. As we age, we develop more elaborate and more efficient ways of getting what we need from the environment, utilizing our cognitive abilities to do so.
A machine has exactly what needs? Electricity? It certainly doesn't have a biological impetus for reproduction. A truly intelligent machine, then, would have no reason to communicate or engage in any sort of causal behavior. It would simply want to stay plugged in. Any motivation that a computer would have (the punishment and reward suggested by Turing) would have no intrinsic value to its survival. It would be wholly arbitrary and entirely external.
Does this mean that a machine *couldn't* be intelligent? No. But it does have consequences for what intelligence means. If we ever describe machines as intelligent, it means that we would need to accept that mental representations and language need to serve some purpose beyond the evolutionary. You cannot claim that we can create "life" in this way without admitting the possibility of our own created-ness.
Obviously, as a Christian, I have no problem with this (even if I disagree with the idea of machine intelligence), but it's a dilemma that I highly doubt many computer scientists ever consider.
Showing posts with label Theology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Theology. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Christmas Time is Here
After years of putting it off, I'm finally getting around to reading Flannery O'Connor. I'd heard a lot about the impact of her faith on her writing and about her sacramental understanding of creation. It can be a bit tricky to see in much of her writing, because so many of her stories are about people who ultimately lack these things. I finally did pick up on it, though, and about that time, as if to reinforce things, I hit the penultimate paragraph of "The Artificial [Black Person]", which reads as follows:
"Mr. Head stood very still and felt the action of mercy touch him again, but this time he knew that there were no words in the world that could name it. He understood that it grew out of agony, which is not denied to any man and which is given in strange ways to children. He understood it was all a man could carry into death to give his Maker and he suddenly burned with shame that he had so little of it to take with him. He stood appalled, judging himself with the thoroughness of God, while the action of mercy covered his pride like a flame and consumed it. He had never thought himself a great sinner before but he saw now that his true depravity had been hidden from him lest it cause him despair. He realized that he was forgiven for sins from the beginning of time, when he had conceived in his own heart the sin of Adam, until the present, when he had denied poor Nelson. He saw that no sin was too monstrous for him to claim as his own, and since God loved in proportion as He forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter Paradise."
This is Christianity, as I understand it, in a nutshell. This is the freeing power of surrendering to the truth of your guilt and brokenness and, in accordance, the inexplicable blessing that is God's mercy. This is coming to grips with the enormous power of God's grace and its ability to fill you to whatever extent you allow and the futility of trying to live without it. This, strange as it may seem, is joy.
Today is Christmas. It is a day for recalling the fullness of God's love, that He would come helpless among us to suffer and bear away our guilt. It is the initiation of a promise of which we are not worthy, but that's the point. If, in our unworthiness, God sees fit to come and serve us, why should we feel as though we ought to be anything better than servants ourselves?
Today, we bear witness to God's mercy taking root in the world, and we ask it to snuff out our pride. We open our eyes to our sinfulness and consecrate ourselves anew to servitude under the grace of God. In doing this, we make ourselves available to the promise of our own redemption and to the work that will redeem creation. Today, we are told that no matter how sad and undeserving we are, we are gifted boundless Love, and we struggle against ourselves to reflect that love so that we may better glory in its undeserved culmination on Easter.
Merry Christmas.
"Mr. Head stood very still and felt the action of mercy touch him again, but this time he knew that there were no words in the world that could name it. He understood that it grew out of agony, which is not denied to any man and which is given in strange ways to children. He understood it was all a man could carry into death to give his Maker and he suddenly burned with shame that he had so little of it to take with him. He stood appalled, judging himself with the thoroughness of God, while the action of mercy covered his pride like a flame and consumed it. He had never thought himself a great sinner before but he saw now that his true depravity had been hidden from him lest it cause him despair. He realized that he was forgiven for sins from the beginning of time, when he had conceived in his own heart the sin of Adam, until the present, when he had denied poor Nelson. He saw that no sin was too monstrous for him to claim as his own, and since God loved in proportion as He forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter Paradise."
This is Christianity, as I understand it, in a nutshell. This is the freeing power of surrendering to the truth of your guilt and brokenness and, in accordance, the inexplicable blessing that is God's mercy. This is coming to grips with the enormous power of God's grace and its ability to fill you to whatever extent you allow and the futility of trying to live without it. This, strange as it may seem, is joy.
Today is Christmas. It is a day for recalling the fullness of God's love, that He would come helpless among us to suffer and bear away our guilt. It is the initiation of a promise of which we are not worthy, but that's the point. If, in our unworthiness, God sees fit to come and serve us, why should we feel as though we ought to be anything better than servants ourselves?
Today, we bear witness to God's mercy taking root in the world, and we ask it to snuff out our pride. We open our eyes to our sinfulness and consecrate ourselves anew to servitude under the grace of God. In doing this, we make ourselves available to the promise of our own redemption and to the work that will redeem creation. Today, we are told that no matter how sad and undeserving we are, we are gifted boundless Love, and we struggle against ourselves to reflect that love so that we may better glory in its undeserved culmination on Easter.
Merry Christmas.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Why I Don't Care About Heaven and Hell
The notion of Hell is theologically troubling for lots of reasons. At the surface, it basically asks you to accept one of two things: Either we have an omnibenevolent God who has created billions of people over history for the express purpose of delivering them to eternal torment, or we have an omnipotent God whose greatest will -- that all should come to know and love him -- can be thwarted by mere mortals. This conundrum has probably turned more people away from faith (in the traditional understanding) than just about anything else; and it has led plenty of theologians to attempt to find new and creative ways of eliminating the issue, virtually all of which also fall on their faces at some point.
Several weeks ago, certain circles of the internet were agog in news that Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill, one of the most prominent mega churches in the country, was publishing a book, Love Wins. In particular, the hullabaloo was related to the book's description, which suggested an endorsement of Universalism (the notion that everybody is granted eternal Salvation). I haven't read the book, and I highly doubt I will, but based on what I've read since its release, it sounds as though it's largely laying out what I was introduced to in my Calvin College philosophy studies as The Doctrine of Second Chances.
Essentially, this doctrine turns Hell into a sort of Hell-Purgatory mash-up from which suffering souls can repent, accept Christ, and be granted entry into Heaven. There are lots of obvious theological problems with this idea -- the fact that it stands in direct contradiction to scripture for one (the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, most notably). It also seems to stand in direct opposition to the traditional definition of Hell -- a place of complete absence from God. It would seem that, without the presence of God, one could not recognize His Goodness.
This is all well and good, but it doesn't seem to be what most people are up in arms about. I'm sure that a man as respected as Bell knows all of these complaints and others perfectly well and has found clever ways of interpreting scripture that try to sidestep them. Instead, I see way too many people who are opposed to Universalism not because of Theological reasons but because it makes them ask the following questions: If everybody goes to Heaven, what's the purpose of being Christian? If there is no eternal punishment, why am I trying to be good now?
This sort of thinking just makes me sad. It suggests that being "good" is some how onerous. That it would be better if we could all just be selfish and greedy and follow our basest instincts. It endorses the view of life as some sort of balancing act in which we want our good deeds to outweigh our bad deeds by a wide enough margin that we will be let into heaven. By this view, not only can we "earn" Salvation -- one of the fundamental ideas against which Protestants rallied in the Reformation -- it suggests that we can somehow put God in our debt, an absolutely ludicrous notion. More important, though, this line of thinking denies fundamental truths that we attest to: That we were created good and to be good. That sin is an aberration that we are meant not just to avoid but to despise. That true joy and peace rest in returning to some semblance of Communion with God.
If we embrace these truths, the question of "Why be a Christian now?" becomes an easy one, even in the face of Universalism. Because God first loved us and we are called to reciprocate that Love. Because every additional moment we spend in even limited awareness of God's Grace is a moment of greater joy than we can find in any other way. Because now is when we are amidst creation and able to help take a stand against the evils that have tainted it. Because it is what we were created to be.
If you call yourself a Christian and spend your time worrying about where people are going to spend eternity at a level that goes beyond the academic, please, take a moment to think about how you're living your life. Odds are it isn't particularly Biblical and you might want to re-examine where you're going by your own standards. Stop worrying about your "reward" for all the suffering you're putting yourself through by trying to be good because, if you're doing it right, the work -- hard as it can be -- is its own reward.
Several weeks ago, certain circles of the internet were agog in news that Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill, one of the most prominent mega churches in the country, was publishing a book, Love Wins. In particular, the hullabaloo was related to the book's description, which suggested an endorsement of Universalism (the notion that everybody is granted eternal Salvation). I haven't read the book, and I highly doubt I will, but based on what I've read since its release, it sounds as though it's largely laying out what I was introduced to in my Calvin College philosophy studies as The Doctrine of Second Chances.
Essentially, this doctrine turns Hell into a sort of Hell-Purgatory mash-up from which suffering souls can repent, accept Christ, and be granted entry into Heaven. There are lots of obvious theological problems with this idea -- the fact that it stands in direct contradiction to scripture for one (the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, most notably). It also seems to stand in direct opposition to the traditional definition of Hell -- a place of complete absence from God. It would seem that, without the presence of God, one could not recognize His Goodness.
This is all well and good, but it doesn't seem to be what most people are up in arms about. I'm sure that a man as respected as Bell knows all of these complaints and others perfectly well and has found clever ways of interpreting scripture that try to sidestep them. Instead, I see way too many people who are opposed to Universalism not because of Theological reasons but because it makes them ask the following questions: If everybody goes to Heaven, what's the purpose of being Christian? If there is no eternal punishment, why am I trying to be good now?
This sort of thinking just makes me sad. It suggests that being "good" is some how onerous. That it would be better if we could all just be selfish and greedy and follow our basest instincts. It endorses the view of life as some sort of balancing act in which we want our good deeds to outweigh our bad deeds by a wide enough margin that we will be let into heaven. By this view, not only can we "earn" Salvation -- one of the fundamental ideas against which Protestants rallied in the Reformation -- it suggests that we can somehow put God in our debt, an absolutely ludicrous notion. More important, though, this line of thinking denies fundamental truths that we attest to: That we were created good and to be good. That sin is an aberration that we are meant not just to avoid but to despise. That true joy and peace rest in returning to some semblance of Communion with God.
If we embrace these truths, the question of "Why be a Christian now?" becomes an easy one, even in the face of Universalism. Because God first loved us and we are called to reciprocate that Love. Because every additional moment we spend in even limited awareness of God's Grace is a moment of greater joy than we can find in any other way. Because now is when we are amidst creation and able to help take a stand against the evils that have tainted it. Because it is what we were created to be.
If you call yourself a Christian and spend your time worrying about where people are going to spend eternity at a level that goes beyond the academic, please, take a moment to think about how you're living your life. Odds are it isn't particularly Biblical and you might want to re-examine where you're going by your own standards. Stop worrying about your "reward" for all the suffering you're putting yourself through by trying to be good because, if you're doing it right, the work -- hard as it can be -- is its own reward.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Lessons Slowly Learned
I struggle a lot with guilt. I try my best not to rationalize my decisions or hide from their consequences, but I'm not always good at doing this in a healthy way. I obsess over trying to be better, trying to be the person I'm supposed to be. I get hung up on penitence, unwilling to forgive myself until I'm convinced that all blemishes of my wrong-doing have been rectified (an impossible task).
Not very long ago, I spent upwards of two years of my life feeling such a persistent and crushing guilt over my inability to do this sufficiently that it nearly broke me. Then, one day last summer, when everything was at its apex and I was feeling especially horrible and worthless, somebody I respected gave me a hug and told me that I was a good man. I felt true absolution for the first time in my life and spent the next 48 hours spontaneously coming close to tears as I dealt with what that meant:
I cannot make myself better. On my own, I am incapable of being good. The same holds for you. What we can do is this singular good thing: take our focus off of ourselves and let God's Grace take root. Through that Grace, we are allowed to do all manner of good, but it is not something that can come when our concern rests on ourselves. Freedom from guilt and from fear comes only from ignoring our pride and our insecurities and being servants to one another. That this is something we can do no matter how sinful and hideous we may feel, as I apparently did that day last summer, is a testament to God's goodness and Love.
Love, like Grace, is not something we earn. It is something we are allowed and given in spite of ourselves. It is utterly inhuman, embracing faults and failings, freeing us to move beyond them instead of demanding retribution or justification. We are free to give it because it has been given to us, but it is not something that we can seek. The very idea of seeking Love is absurd. The act requires us to be so focused on ourselves that we necessarily lose our fleeting sight of what Love is.
I forget all of this, though. I allow my insecurities and my guilt to get the best of me and restore my focus to myself and my wants. I consistently fall into the trap of thinking that salvation and redemption are about me. That whatever good God allows me is for my sake and my glory rather than to glorify Him and His plan. I return to the belief that my ultimate goal is to be able to do good without Grace instead of being more immediately receptive to it. Hypocritically, I think that even though I can somehow find the ability to love my friends, fallen and fallible as they are, I am incapable of being loved unless I am something approaching perfect.
When this happens to any of us, all we are capable of spreading is hurt. As such, I have realized that, next time I allow myself to be overly caught up in my own desires and insecurities and, in doing so, bring stress and pain on those close to me, I will not to turn it into an issue of my own inadequacy. I will, instead, use it as a reminder that I cannot be so important to myself. That it is only in properly Loving that I can recognize the Love that God and others have for me.
Not very long ago, I spent upwards of two years of my life feeling such a persistent and crushing guilt over my inability to do this sufficiently that it nearly broke me. Then, one day last summer, when everything was at its apex and I was feeling especially horrible and worthless, somebody I respected gave me a hug and told me that I was a good man. I felt true absolution for the first time in my life and spent the next 48 hours spontaneously coming close to tears as I dealt with what that meant:
I cannot make myself better. On my own, I am incapable of being good. The same holds for you. What we can do is this singular good thing: take our focus off of ourselves and let God's Grace take root. Through that Grace, we are allowed to do all manner of good, but it is not something that can come when our concern rests on ourselves. Freedom from guilt and from fear comes only from ignoring our pride and our insecurities and being servants to one another. That this is something we can do no matter how sinful and hideous we may feel, as I apparently did that day last summer, is a testament to God's goodness and Love.
Love, like Grace, is not something we earn. It is something we are allowed and given in spite of ourselves. It is utterly inhuman, embracing faults and failings, freeing us to move beyond them instead of demanding retribution or justification. We are free to give it because it has been given to us, but it is not something that we can seek. The very idea of seeking Love is absurd. The act requires us to be so focused on ourselves that we necessarily lose our fleeting sight of what Love is.
I forget all of this, though. I allow my insecurities and my guilt to get the best of me and restore my focus to myself and my wants. I consistently fall into the trap of thinking that salvation and redemption are about me. That whatever good God allows me is for my sake and my glory rather than to glorify Him and His plan. I return to the belief that my ultimate goal is to be able to do good without Grace instead of being more immediately receptive to it. Hypocritically, I think that even though I can somehow find the ability to love my friends, fallen and fallible as they are, I am incapable of being loved unless I am something approaching perfect.
When this happens to any of us, all we are capable of spreading is hurt. As such, I have realized that, next time I allow myself to be overly caught up in my own desires and insecurities and, in doing so, bring stress and pain on those close to me, I will not to turn it into an issue of my own inadequacy. I will, instead, use it as a reminder that I cannot be so important to myself. That it is only in properly Loving that I can recognize the Love that God and others have for me.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Cyclic Arguments for Atheism
Several years ago, a non-Christian friend asked me how I accounted for people, even people before Jesus, espousing many of the same ideologies preached in the Gospel. Unfortunately, most of his other Christian friends were, let's say ill informed and over-zealous*, and had previously told him that such men were sent by Satan to give us cause to doubt the origins of Jesus' message. Understandably, this wasn't terribly palatable to him. My answer on the other hand, which was sufficient for most of the people in the room, basically boiled down to Common Grace and Jesus being the Eternal Word. The friend who posed the question, not wanting to appear beaten, responded by saying, "But I don't believe that." Amazingly enough, that's a pretty generic example of a pretty dumb strategy I've seen a lot lately across the interwebs when those hostile to religion feel the need to try and challenge religious individuals with the intent of embarrassment. As such, I thought I'd address it quickly.
Attention, atheists: I know plenty of you, I generally understand your reasons for not believing, and I think most of you are perfectly swell folks irregardless. But, when you're debating the relative merits of theism, or asking how people of faith respond to apparent paradoxes or more general quandaries, you've got to remember that you're going to get a theological answer rather than a practical one nine times out of ten. After all, if there were a clear, practical answer, you wouldn't be asking the question in the first place. Moreover, the challenge was never to somehow "solve" the problem for you -- a rigged game if ever there was one. It was to explain how a person of faith can justify continued belief in spite of it.
So, while I welcome you to go on ahead and challenge the answer given, whether you're questioning its theological basis or its ability to adequately resolve the issue; asserting that said answer is invalid because of its nature and resultantly claiming some sort of victory for yourself just makes you look like an ass. It's what happened to my friend when I simply retorted with, "but I do," and he got laughed at so hard that he briefly left the room; and it will happen to you if your "opponent" is even mildly competent.**
Thank you, and goodnight.
Also, for those interested, this was brought on by this tweet and my consideration of how poorly the man who wrote it would likely respond to an answer revolving around doctrines of Inspiration and The Trinity in light of earlier boasting about his atheism -- always a bad sign.
*In this case, Youth Group leaders at the local Evangelical Free Church. Sorry to the EV Free people in the audience, but this sort of experience is why I'm generally skeptical of your churches.
**and if they aren't competent, you haven't accomplished anything anyway, so shut your damned trap. ;)
Attention, atheists: I know plenty of you, I generally understand your reasons for not believing, and I think most of you are perfectly swell folks irregardless. But, when you're debating the relative merits of theism, or asking how people of faith respond to apparent paradoxes or more general quandaries, you've got to remember that you're going to get a theological answer rather than a practical one nine times out of ten. After all, if there were a clear, practical answer, you wouldn't be asking the question in the first place. Moreover, the challenge was never to somehow "solve" the problem for you -- a rigged game if ever there was one. It was to explain how a person of faith can justify continued belief in spite of it.
So, while I welcome you to go on ahead and challenge the answer given, whether you're questioning its theological basis or its ability to adequately resolve the issue; asserting that said answer is invalid because of its nature and resultantly claiming some sort of victory for yourself just makes you look like an ass. It's what happened to my friend when I simply retorted with, "but I do," and he got laughed at so hard that he briefly left the room; and it will happen to you if your "opponent" is even mildly competent.**
Thank you, and goodnight.
Also, for those interested, this was brought on by this tweet and my consideration of how poorly the man who wrote it would likely respond to an answer revolving around doctrines of Inspiration and The Trinity in light of earlier boasting about his atheism -- always a bad sign.
*In this case, Youth Group leaders at the local Evangelical Free Church. Sorry to the EV Free people in the audience, but this sort of experience is why I'm generally skeptical of your churches.
**and if they aren't competent, you haven't accomplished anything anyway, so shut your damned trap. ;)
Sunday, July 5, 2009
More Religious/Catholic talk!
I really don't get why so many religious people are so violently opposed to anything dealing with postmodernism. We actively talk about faith as being transformative, and I can't think of anything more postmodern than that - belief impacting behavior and perception. The basic idea is that, if you really truly believe that Jesus of Nazareth was and is the eternal Son of God who came to live among us, then you're going to live your life differently. You're going to try to follow His example and His teachings more closely. You're going to have a new appreciation for the handiwork of creation in light of the revelation of God's love. The reality you live in will, in a real way, be altered from the reality you understood before believing.
Thinking about this finally helped me to understand the Catholic sacraments. The common definition of a sacrament is "An outward sign, initiated by Christ on Earth, to give us grace". The definition as I tend to remember (and prefer) it is "An outward sign of God's grace, initiated by Christ on Earth". The difference here is that the grace, in my definition, is pre-existing. It is something that the sacrament is a reminder of and not something conferred by participation in it.
Here's where I'm going with this. If I receive the Eucharist, and I firmly and truly believe that it is, metaphysically, the body and blood of Christ, who sacrificed himself that I may live more fully...then I'm going to respond to that presence. I am going to honor that sacrifice in my living. I am going to strive to be a better person. That's not to say that I couldn't do those things without having received the Eucharist, but participation in the sacrament, if I believe in it, heightens my sense of duty and my awareness of the abundant grace I have already been blessed with, grace I may not otherwise be aware of.
I've seen this in people. I had teachers throughout my Catholic education who tried to make it to Mass every morning, and you could tell when they hadn't. They were grumpier, they were less patient, they didn't teach as well. Daily Eucharist was a ritual by which they connected to God and their duty in the classroom as Christian educators, and without it, they were lost. For other people, myself included, Eucharist doesn't have nearly this big an impact...but that's because we don't believe in it, or at least not to the same extent.
Some people would look at what I'm saying and construe it as another way of saying "oh, religion is for the weak, the people who don't have the will to lead the lives they know they should without it". Maybe that's a valid interpretation. Maybe it's all a bunch of psychosematic crap we would be better off without. I disagree, though. I think that any way we have of pushing and encouraging ourselves to be better is of value; and I happen to believe very strongly that Jesus was right in His teachings of what it means to be better.
That is all.
Thinking about this finally helped me to understand the Catholic sacraments. The common definition of a sacrament is "An outward sign, initiated by Christ on Earth, to give us grace". The definition as I tend to remember (and prefer) it is "An outward sign of God's grace, initiated by Christ on Earth". The difference here is that the grace, in my definition, is pre-existing. It is something that the sacrament is a reminder of and not something conferred by participation in it.
Here's where I'm going with this. If I receive the Eucharist, and I firmly and truly believe that it is, metaphysically, the body and blood of Christ, who sacrificed himself that I may live more fully...then I'm going to respond to that presence. I am going to honor that sacrifice in my living. I am going to strive to be a better person. That's not to say that I couldn't do those things without having received the Eucharist, but participation in the sacrament, if I believe in it, heightens my sense of duty and my awareness of the abundant grace I have already been blessed with, grace I may not otherwise be aware of.
I've seen this in people. I had teachers throughout my Catholic education who tried to make it to Mass every morning, and you could tell when they hadn't. They were grumpier, they were less patient, they didn't teach as well. Daily Eucharist was a ritual by which they connected to God and their duty in the classroom as Christian educators, and without it, they were lost. For other people, myself included, Eucharist doesn't have nearly this big an impact...but that's because we don't believe in it, or at least not to the same extent.
Some people would look at what I'm saying and construe it as another way of saying "oh, religion is for the weak, the people who don't have the will to lead the lives they know they should without it". Maybe that's a valid interpretation. Maybe it's all a bunch of psychosematic crap we would be better off without. I disagree, though. I think that any way we have of pushing and encouraging ourselves to be better is of value; and I happen to believe very strongly that Jesus was right in His teachings of what it means to be better.
That is all.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
This feels more worthwhile than homework...
The other day, a friend of mine was complaining about a religion class she had just left. They had begun discussing the doctrine of predestination, and she was a bit upset over the way her classmates insisted on overreacting to the issue instead of waiting to see what the professor had to say about it. The issue is one that I thought over a fair bit before I was comfortable coming here, so for those of you who aren't familiar, the basic gist most people use to describe predestination is as follows:
Whether you're going to heaven or not is essentially "determined" (poor semantic choice, in my opinion, but we'll get to that) before you ever have a chance to live.
Those people who are bound for heaven are generally referred to as the "Elect"; and back in the day (and even to a degree now) it was generally believed that the Elect could be identified while they were alive, frequently by material prosperity. The strongly traditional Calvinist views of many of the founding fathers are where we get a lot of the idea of America being the new Jerusalem (after all, God must have been with us if we beat the British!). As popular as this notion has been (and is), it's clearly un-Biblical and not supported within any official doctrine I've seen or been quoted (which is, admittedly, very little).
Many people also just like to assume that all people who claim themselves to be Christian are among the Elect, but this also has no support. Fundamentally, only God determines who the Elect are, and we have no way of knowing. Once I realized that neither of these two things were part of the doctrine of predestination, I decided to let the Heaven and Hell part of the issue out of the equation. I decided at the time that, minus the whole "pre" part, it was suitably vague in terms of who gets what at the end of time that I could deal.
Unfortunately for my friend, her classmates weren't nearly so cool, so they derailed a large part of their education complaining and asking how come God couldn't give these people a chance. This type of thought is, in my mind, really the poor kids being upset about the doctrine of Hell (and maybe a little bit of Limited Atonement) but being far too afraid to express their distaste for such a fundamental part of Christian theology.
The real complication, in my mind, has little to do with the final destination nearly so much as the journey, and what predestination can be interpreted to say about how that journey (I'm talking about life here) works. If we are predestined for Hell, then, obviously, we are predestined to live a life fit for Hell, as God us fundamentally just (also, if you don't understand how Hell can be just, which is a tricky issue in its own right, let me know, and I'll see what I can do there). So, what does this say about our free will? People who believe intently in predestination will tell you it's an illusion. THIS, I have difficulty with. However, over the last few years, I've been formulating a model of predestination that I'm relatively comfortable with. As you've probably guessed, I'm going to spend the next while explaining it to you. Also, if any of you happen to have Theologian parents *COUGH*, I'd actually be interested in hearing what type of heathen they think I am...
So, first thing's first. We need to remember that predestination is something that occurs and exists outside of the foreknowledge of God. Of course, God, existing outside of our concept of time, knows everything we will do and where we will end up in what could be called an experiential manner. Predestination goes beyond this, so any theory of predestination must take this into account. So, I ask you this, think about a person you know incredibly well: a parent or sibling, a close friend, a boy/girlfriend, or something of the like. Now, you've probably got a pretty good idea of how they will respond to most basic events, right? If you do something, knowing how they will respond, you didn't make them do that thing, did you? Obviously, abusing this knowledge for your own benefit (and/or their detriment) would be undesirable, but that's another issue.
Now, think about God, who knows you better than you know yourself; who has a fundamental understanding of every aspect of your character, every working of your heart and mind. Wouldn't such a God be able to know exactly the sort of life you would live without you needing to live it? Wouldn't, then, the outcome of your life be written in stone and known to such a God before it ever occurred?
Dilemma solved...except not really. This raises serious questions about the nature of our souls and our characters. If God created us as individuals who would actively lead lives deserving of damnation, isn't that just as bad as making us do these very things? Perhaps, but this assumes that our souls are temporal; that they have only existed within time. Obviously this is treading incredibly towards notions of Cartesian dualism (ironic, seeing as the other complication I'm about to get to delves closer into materialism than I tend to enjoy), but if the soul, as originally created, exists outside of the complications of The Fall, then such a thing could not be said; as it is only the fallen nature of creation that puts our souls in jeopardy (oh no! potential gnosticism!).
The other complication is the question of whether or not we could actually determine a person's behavior entirely from some aspects of their character. Such a proposition implies that materialist ideas that human behavior, and indeed, consciousness is merely the result of some sort of incredibly complicated function being applied over a set of inputs. I really don't know how I feel about this, as I've always wanted to err more towards the side of dualism than materialism (probably, in part, to justify the shitty care I take of myself =P), but as I think about it, the more I'm inclined to worry less. Think again for a moment about this: the results events generally accepted as random (coin tosses, die rolls, etc.), can be computed precisely given enough environmental information, but it's simply not worth the effort.
Now think of something as complicated as human consciousness; even if there is some sort of magical formula unique to each person determining exactly how they will respond to an event, it would be impossible for any living person to comprehend everything that a person takes into account, much less how it weighs, for a single individual, much less the entire human population that ever has lived, is living, or will live...if my behavior is the result of some complicated set of rules that can only be perceived by God, I think I'm okay with that.
And, I'm spent.
Of the, like, four of you who occasionally mention having read this, I doubt most of you care too much about higher theology...But I've been thinking about this for quite awhile, and the situation just seemed right. I'd welcome any critiques of my thoughts, corrections of my likely errant supporting theology, or guidance towards stronger resources for hashing these sorts of things out.
Whether you're going to heaven or not is essentially "determined" (poor semantic choice, in my opinion, but we'll get to that) before you ever have a chance to live.
Those people who are bound for heaven are generally referred to as the "Elect"; and back in the day (and even to a degree now) it was generally believed that the Elect could be identified while they were alive, frequently by material prosperity. The strongly traditional Calvinist views of many of the founding fathers are where we get a lot of the idea of America being the new Jerusalem (after all, God must have been with us if we beat the British!). As popular as this notion has been (and is), it's clearly un-Biblical and not supported within any official doctrine I've seen or been quoted (which is, admittedly, very little).
Many people also just like to assume that all people who claim themselves to be Christian are among the Elect, but this also has no support. Fundamentally, only God determines who the Elect are, and we have no way of knowing. Once I realized that neither of these two things were part of the doctrine of predestination, I decided to let the Heaven and Hell part of the issue out of the equation. I decided at the time that, minus the whole "pre" part, it was suitably vague in terms of who gets what at the end of time that I could deal.
Unfortunately for my friend, her classmates weren't nearly so cool, so they derailed a large part of their education complaining and asking how come God couldn't give these people a chance. This type of thought is, in my mind, really the poor kids being upset about the doctrine of Hell (and maybe a little bit of Limited Atonement) but being far too afraid to express their distaste for such a fundamental part of Christian theology.
The real complication, in my mind, has little to do with the final destination nearly so much as the journey, and what predestination can be interpreted to say about how that journey (I'm talking about life here) works. If we are predestined for Hell, then, obviously, we are predestined to live a life fit for Hell, as God us fundamentally just (also, if you don't understand how Hell can be just, which is a tricky issue in its own right, let me know, and I'll see what I can do there). So, what does this say about our free will? People who believe intently in predestination will tell you it's an illusion. THIS, I have difficulty with. However, over the last few years, I've been formulating a model of predestination that I'm relatively comfortable with. As you've probably guessed, I'm going to spend the next while explaining it to you. Also, if any of you happen to have Theologian parents *COUGH*, I'd actually be interested in hearing what type of heathen they think I am...
So, first thing's first. We need to remember that predestination is something that occurs and exists outside of the foreknowledge of God. Of course, God, existing outside of our concept of time, knows everything we will do and where we will end up in what could be called an experiential manner. Predestination goes beyond this, so any theory of predestination must take this into account. So, I ask you this, think about a person you know incredibly well: a parent or sibling, a close friend, a boy/girlfriend, or something of the like. Now, you've probably got a pretty good idea of how they will respond to most basic events, right? If you do something, knowing how they will respond, you didn't make them do that thing, did you? Obviously, abusing this knowledge for your own benefit (and/or their detriment) would be undesirable, but that's another issue.
Now, think about God, who knows you better than you know yourself; who has a fundamental understanding of every aspect of your character, every working of your heart and mind. Wouldn't such a God be able to know exactly the sort of life you would live without you needing to live it? Wouldn't, then, the outcome of your life be written in stone and known to such a God before it ever occurred?
Dilemma solved...except not really. This raises serious questions about the nature of our souls and our characters. If God created us as individuals who would actively lead lives deserving of damnation, isn't that just as bad as making us do these very things? Perhaps, but this assumes that our souls are temporal; that they have only existed within time. Obviously this is treading incredibly towards notions of Cartesian dualism (ironic, seeing as the other complication I'm about to get to delves closer into materialism than I tend to enjoy), but if the soul, as originally created, exists outside of the complications of The Fall, then such a thing could not be said; as it is only the fallen nature of creation that puts our souls in jeopardy (oh no! potential gnosticism!).
The other complication is the question of whether or not we could actually determine a person's behavior entirely from some aspects of their character. Such a proposition implies that materialist ideas that human behavior, and indeed, consciousness is merely the result of some sort of incredibly complicated function being applied over a set of inputs. I really don't know how I feel about this, as I've always wanted to err more towards the side of dualism than materialism (probably, in part, to justify the shitty care I take of myself =P), but as I think about it, the more I'm inclined to worry less. Think again for a moment about this: the results events generally accepted as random (coin tosses, die rolls, etc.), can be computed precisely given enough environmental information, but it's simply not worth the effort.
Now think of something as complicated as human consciousness; even if there is some sort of magical formula unique to each person determining exactly how they will respond to an event, it would be impossible for any living person to comprehend everything that a person takes into account, much less how it weighs, for a single individual, much less the entire human population that ever has lived, is living, or will live...if my behavior is the result of some complicated set of rules that can only be perceived by God, I think I'm okay with that.
And, I'm spent.
Of the, like, four of you who occasionally mention having read this, I doubt most of you care too much about higher theology...But I've been thinking about this for quite awhile, and the situation just seemed right. I'd welcome any critiques of my thoughts, corrections of my likely errant supporting theology, or guidance towards stronger resources for hashing these sorts of things out.
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