Take Your Partner Round the Bend...

I wonder if I am moving towards a biweekly posting schedule. I hope not, but that has been the pattern of things thus far. Maybe things will improve next week. Probably not, but lets pretend to hold some kind of hope.

How can we prove what we believe? How can we know our faith is real and true? I’ve been reading some David Hume and have some thoughts. We can never prove what we believe. We can never know our faith is real and true. Do you feel good about yourself now?

Yesterday I attended an ordination council. That is a time honored tradition of Baptist folks when a candidate for ordination (someone who want to be called “rev.”) reads a paper explaining all of his or her beliefs and why he or she “feels called” to be a pastor. Then everyone who has attended, pastors and representatives from other nearby churches, ask questions intended to:

1. Show how smart and clever the pastor is
2. Make the candidate look and feel foolish
3. Bring attention to his or her own struggles
4. Show how stupid the pastor is

It is a lot of fun, especially to watch a candidate try to act pastoral and understanding when a particularly stupid question is asked. Personally I think such things would be better solved through feats of strength and endurance but like I said, it is time honored.

Yesterday’s council went well; the fine, fine candidate did a fine, fine job with a fine, fine paper. I was interested in a claim made about scripture. I am going to put it in my own language to protect the identity of this candidate:

Scripture is authoritative because God has made it so. We know that God holds the ultimate power over everything and can imbue things with authority because scripture tells us so. Further, scripture tells us that God has made scripture authoritative. Therefore scripture is authoritative.

First, put down the inerrant, infallible, inspired quagmire that you want to cast in my direction. Hermeneutics is not the point of this post. Settle down.

Second, do you see the circle in the claim? Scripture is authoritative because God makes it so. We know this because scripture tells us so and we accept it because scripture is authoritative. Are you dizzy?

I’m not necessarily critiquing this claim. There are mountains of theological claims and arguments that are circular in nature. Feel free to spin to your heart’s content (just don’t throw up in my direction) as long as you are honest about your geometric convictions. It is one thing to present such a claim to a fellow believer, but what if it is presented to an outsider? All the outsider has to say is something like, “I don’t believe God has the power to imbue things with authority,” or, “I don’t believe in the existence of God.”

Listen.

Hear that?

It is the sound of the record scratching and the disco ball falling to the ground.

Theological claims, faith claims, are premised on a belief in something that cannot be demonstrated or proven. Take away that premise and everything else falls. I don’t think you can avoid this, but I do think it is important to be honest with your faith. That means when you are explaining your faith to the alien race that has come to understand and ultimately conquer the world there will come a point when you will say, “I can’t explain it. This is just what I believe.” If the other person cannot accept that premise or belief than do not expect anything else to be embraced. Don’t beat yourself us, go back to your circle of theology, and look for the dos-e-do between salvation and theodicy. 

Hee-Haw!