The Lack of Reason for God, Epilogue
Dec. 30th, 2014 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blimixThis is part of a series examining the the logic of Timothy Keller's book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.
Standard disclaimer: This, despite being a public post, is not an invitation for a religion debate with strangers. Been there, done that, still jaded.
Last week: Chapter 14 spouted vague nonsense about the holy trinity.
Epilogue
In which Keller's rambling about conversion contains very little logic or reason to address.
(Page numbers are from the hardcover version of the book.)
p. 228. "Are you getting into Christianity to serve God, or to get God to serve you? The latter is a kind [of] shamanism, an effort to get control of God through your prayers and practices."
Here, Keller touches on a problem with prayer: One that I agree is a problem. What sort of hubris makes people think that they can influence god's actions by praying? Let's say you pray for god to bring about some event, and he listens to and grants your prayer. Now, either your prayer was utterly needless because god was going to cause the event anyway, in which case there was no point in praying for it, or your prayer changed god's mind about what to do. In the latter case, was god wrong before or after your prayer? Did he need you to set him right about what to do? Or was he all set to do the right thing, before you pressured him into doing the wrong thing instead?
Does Keller have a problem with the "shamanism" of Christians praying for things to happen? Or does he only mind people converting to Christianity with the intention of praying, even though it's fine to do once you're in the club?
My book club friend notes that having "God serve you" is half of the relationship. God is supposed to be there for you, right? There is no good reason for Keller to portray this negatively as "control".
pp. 229-230. Keller quotes Bono, who says that Jesus claimed to be god and the messiah. He uses this to rehash the "Lunatic, liar, or lord?" argument (made in chapter 7, though I didn't address it there directly), which asserts that you have to either accept Jesus as divine or reject him fully, rather than honor him secularly as a praiseworthy teacher/visionary/activist.
Messiah, yes. God, no. In the Bible, every time someone asked Jesus if he was god, he answered, "You have said so," or something along those lines, depending on the translation. (Matthew 26:64, Matthew 27:11, and Luke 22:70.) If he didn't claim to be god, then you can appreciate him as a human being without considering him a nutcase. Also, there have been plenty of visionary humans who eventually went a bit off the deep end. (Nikola Tesla and Linus Pauling come to mind.) One can appreciate their contributions to the human race while still acknowledging that they weren't right about everything.
The "Lunatic, liar, or lord?" argument misses the possibility that Jesus might have been a purely mortal (and sane) teacher and/or activist, who has been misquoted and misrepresented as a divine messiah in the Bible.
The above assumes that Jesus even existed. Anyone may be justified in admiring him as an inspiring fictional character, whether divine or fully human. In this case, his claims (or lack thereof) of messiahness are nothing more or less than those claims that one might prefer to attribute to him, which might be in keeping with his imagined role and personality.
The rest of the epilogue consists of long musings about the process of converting (in which my book club friend notes that Keller's call to life-changing repentance comes with no useful instruction for changing one's life), and some extended summing up of someone else's work of fiction. There is no further logic to comment upon.
Next week: Nothing! We're done! (Okay, there's a short wrap-up.)
The whole series.
Standard disclaimer: This, despite being a public post, is not an invitation for a religion debate with strangers. Been there, done that, still jaded.
Last week: Chapter 14 spouted vague nonsense about the holy trinity.
In which Keller's rambling about conversion contains very little logic or reason to address.
(Page numbers are from the hardcover version of the book.)
p. 228. "Are you getting into Christianity to serve God, or to get God to serve you? The latter is a kind [of] shamanism, an effort to get control of God through your prayers and practices."
Here, Keller touches on a problem with prayer: One that I agree is a problem. What sort of hubris makes people think that they can influence god's actions by praying? Let's say you pray for god to bring about some event, and he listens to and grants your prayer. Now, either your prayer was utterly needless because god was going to cause the event anyway, in which case there was no point in praying for it, or your prayer changed god's mind about what to do. In the latter case, was god wrong before or after your prayer? Did he need you to set him right about what to do? Or was he all set to do the right thing, before you pressured him into doing the wrong thing instead?
Does Keller have a problem with the "shamanism" of Christians praying for things to happen? Or does he only mind people converting to Christianity with the intention of praying, even though it's fine to do once you're in the club?
My book club friend notes that having "God serve you" is half of the relationship. God is supposed to be there for you, right? There is no good reason for Keller to portray this negatively as "control".
pp. 229-230. Keller quotes Bono, who says that Jesus claimed to be god and the messiah. He uses this to rehash the "Lunatic, liar, or lord?" argument (made in chapter 7, though I didn't address it there directly), which asserts that you have to either accept Jesus as divine or reject him fully, rather than honor him secularly as a praiseworthy teacher/visionary/activist.
Messiah, yes. God, no. In the Bible, every time someone asked Jesus if he was god, he answered, "You have said so," or something along those lines, depending on the translation. (Matthew 26:64, Matthew 27:11, and Luke 22:70.) If he didn't claim to be god, then you can appreciate him as a human being without considering him a nutcase. Also, there have been plenty of visionary humans who eventually went a bit off the deep end. (Nikola Tesla and Linus Pauling come to mind.) One can appreciate their contributions to the human race while still acknowledging that they weren't right about everything.
The "Lunatic, liar, or lord?" argument misses the possibility that Jesus might have been a purely mortal (and sane) teacher and/or activist, who has been misquoted and misrepresented as a divine messiah in the Bible.
The above assumes that Jesus even existed. Anyone may be justified in admiring him as an inspiring fictional character, whether divine or fully human. In this case, his claims (or lack thereof) of messiahness are nothing more or less than those claims that one might prefer to attribute to him, which might be in keeping with his imagined role and personality.
The rest of the epilogue consists of long musings about the process of converting (in which my book club friend notes that Keller's call to life-changing repentance comes with no useful instruction for changing one's life), and some extended summing up of someone else's work of fiction. There is no further logic to comment upon.
Next week: Nothing! We're done! (Okay, there's a short wrap-up.)
The whole series.
