Thoughts on The God Delusion
I've finally gotten around to reading "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. M4tt recommended this book to me some time ago. I think i'm about one third of the way through the book and have decided to post some thoughts on it as i go along.
The first thing that Mr. Dawkins addresses is this supposed separation of Theology and Science. He argues that Theologians have no exclusive claim to Theology or things of that nature (such as the study of creation or ontology). I am inclined to agree with him. I believe that there is a huge problem with most Schools of Theology today. Most Theologians are not Theologians in the proper sense but really Bible Scholars. They likely have a firm understanding of biblical languages (Greek and Hebrew) but don't know College Calculus. I wouldn't call these people trained in the Study of the Divine. In my opinion, if you cannot understand Gravity then how can you expect to understand God? So I think that this is a misguided attack by Mr. Dawkins and is not really relevant to his topic.
He also speaks of the Great Prayer Experiment. This basically deals with the problem of evil. That is, if prayer is effective and if God is a supernatural God, then why does he allow evil to persist in the world and why does he allow suffering.
This is a difficult problem and one that I often wrestle with. Currently my thoughts are this that God gave dominion of Creation to Man. If there is suffering, if there is evil in Creation, it is there because Man who has dominion over Creation and allows it through either direct action or inaction.
Is God then guilty in allowing evil to exist through his permissive will? An omnipotent and omniscient God must be ultimately responsible for everything that occurs within his creation. This is something to struggle with but I think that ultimately guilt lies solely with those who are responsible for the act. One man is cannot be responsible for anothers guilt. We cannot assign guilt to God, a totally different entity, for we are not God and he is not responsible for our actions. Evil occurs within our own dominion and by our own doing, therefore we are responsible, no one else.
The problem of evil and its relationship to Free Will is difficult for my mind to grasp. Certainly we could not have Free Will without the possibility of doing what is not aligned to God's will (Evil). Am I denying the reality of suffering or evil? I do not think that I am. Suffering is terrible. Evil is widespread and shocks me to the deepest levels of my faith. But I know that this suffering and evil I am witnessing is in the dominion of Man and that God has given us the power to fix it.
I am also not sure if we understand temporal suffering. When I was a child I remember being in trouble for this or that. My parents more than once grounded me and made me stay inside my room all day. I remember at the time that I often felt that my life was over and the suffering unbearable. I could not have understood then that the temporal sufferings of a child in that manner were nothing and indeed not real sufferings or evil. Are we enlightened enough to know that these sufferings are indeed evil and true sufferings and not childish temporal and fleeting? If we indeed are eternal beings, created in the image of God, then what will we think of our present temporal sufferings one-thousand years from the resurrection, when our bodies will be made incorruptible and in similar manner to Christ, who is the first-born among many?
It is difficult for me to see how Science can prove or disprove God at this point. Science does not exclude God. Science is only the culmination of human experience. When we base our expectations on Scientific Laws and Theory we are saying that we expect this to happen because It has happened that way through repeated experience and this is how we understand it to be. That's fine. But nothing in Science precludes the divine or the supernatural. this is why we call a miracle is a miracle and God is worthy of reverence. If we could explain either through science, we would cease to call it a miracle and God would not be God but a natural phenomenon and unworthy of our devotion. Belief in God is based on faith, even after examining the evidence for or against. For some, it is reasonable to believe in God. For others it is not. For some it is reasonable to see the cup as half-full, while others see it as half-empty. I believe in God, I believe in Science (and in evolution as a process) and the cup is always half-full.
The first thing that Mr. Dawkins addresses is this supposed separation of Theology and Science. He argues that Theologians have no exclusive claim to Theology or things of that nature (such as the study of creation or ontology). I am inclined to agree with him. I believe that there is a huge problem with most Schools of Theology today. Most Theologians are not Theologians in the proper sense but really Bible Scholars. They likely have a firm understanding of biblical languages (Greek and Hebrew) but don't know College Calculus. I wouldn't call these people trained in the Study of the Divine. In my opinion, if you cannot understand Gravity then how can you expect to understand God? So I think that this is a misguided attack by Mr. Dawkins and is not really relevant to his topic.
He also speaks of the Great Prayer Experiment. This basically deals with the problem of evil. That is, if prayer is effective and if God is a supernatural God, then why does he allow evil to persist in the world and why does he allow suffering.
This is a difficult problem and one that I often wrestle with. Currently my thoughts are this that God gave dominion of Creation to Man. If there is suffering, if there is evil in Creation, it is there because Man who has dominion over Creation and allows it through either direct action or inaction.
Is God then guilty in allowing evil to exist through his permissive will? An omnipotent and omniscient God must be ultimately responsible for everything that occurs within his creation. This is something to struggle with but I think that ultimately guilt lies solely with those who are responsible for the act. One man is cannot be responsible for anothers guilt. We cannot assign guilt to God, a totally different entity, for we are not God and he is not responsible for our actions. Evil occurs within our own dominion and by our own doing, therefore we are responsible, no one else.
The problem of evil and its relationship to Free Will is difficult for my mind to grasp. Certainly we could not have Free Will without the possibility of doing what is not aligned to God's will (Evil). Am I denying the reality of suffering or evil? I do not think that I am. Suffering is terrible. Evil is widespread and shocks me to the deepest levels of my faith. But I know that this suffering and evil I am witnessing is in the dominion of Man and that God has given us the power to fix it.
I am also not sure if we understand temporal suffering. When I was a child I remember being in trouble for this or that. My parents more than once grounded me and made me stay inside my room all day. I remember at the time that I often felt that my life was over and the suffering unbearable. I could not have understood then that the temporal sufferings of a child in that manner were nothing and indeed not real sufferings or evil. Are we enlightened enough to know that these sufferings are indeed evil and true sufferings and not childish temporal and fleeting? If we indeed are eternal beings, created in the image of God, then what will we think of our present temporal sufferings one-thousand years from the resurrection, when our bodies will be made incorruptible and in similar manner to Christ, who is the first-born among many?
It is difficult for me to see how Science can prove or disprove God at this point. Science does not exclude God. Science is only the culmination of human experience. When we base our expectations on Scientific Laws and Theory we are saying that we expect this to happen because It has happened that way through repeated experience and this is how we understand it to be. That's fine. But nothing in Science precludes the divine or the supernatural. this is why we call a miracle is a miracle and God is worthy of reverence. If we could explain either through science, we would cease to call it a miracle and God would not be God but a natural phenomenon and unworthy of our devotion. Belief in God is based on faith, even after examining the evidence for or against. For some, it is reasonable to believe in God. For others it is not. For some it is reasonable to see the cup as half-full, while others see it as half-empty. I believe in God, I believe in Science (and in evolution as a process) and the cup is always half-full.
Comments
It's been a while, hows things?