The Doubt Essential to Faith

When I was a young Mormon missionary, I was intrigued by a dialogue that I would hear regularly during one of the lessons we taught investigators.  The lesson was entitled, The Plan of Salvation, and one of the first tenants it covered was our reasons for being born into mortality. According to Mormon theology, there are two grand purposes for our lives here on earth: 1) To gain a body and 2) To learn to walk by faith.  In combination, the two conditions allow us to be tested.  Regarding the second purpose, my missionary companion and I were very quick to point out that faith is not a perfect knowledge.  Humans, we taught, were caused to forget their pre-mortal existence with God, so that faith was not only possible, but that uncertainty would become an ingredient of their lives.  

Now, here's the interesting part of the story.  No sooner would we cover this concept than my companion would say with the greatest conviction: "I bear you my testimony that I know these things are true."  And he would repeat the same mantra, time and time again, after relating new theological concepts.  Was my companion a bit nutty?  Of course not, because that's exactly what our lesson plan taught us to say, but do you see the irony in this?  We were essentially saying: Faith isn't a perfect knowledge, but we can know that it's a necessary part of our existence and that all aspects of Mormon theology are true.  

As I've pointed out before, the fundamentalist's dogmatic and unshakable boast that he knows God's will on a matter disregards the fact that faith has far more to do with uncertainty than knowledge of what is true.  Yet, Christians deem uncertainty as a kind of failing and a sin.  When I tell my Mormon friends that I've become agnostic to everything that the church teaches, except for the most fundamental of Christ's commandments that we're to love each other, they believe I've committed some horrible wrong that keeps me from true communion with God.  I would know otherwise, they say, if I'd only humble myself and pray with real intent.  

I've done that, of course.  For decades there was nothing more important to me than to one day know that the church was true, but God answered my pleas in a way that surprised me.  The fact is, if we harbor no doubts about Noah and his ark, or if we stick to literal readings of Genesis, then we relegate Christian culture to a scientific backwater that fears facts and learning.  We might as well read chicken entrails for the value it provides.  

Press this link for a wonderful TED speech given by Lesley Hazleton, who has apparently been doing a lot of thinking on this topic.

The Bible's Morality

The more one reads from the scriptures, the more it becomes apparent that a great deal of it should not be taken as useful, or even moral.  For example, the premise that God would select a chosen people and make enemies of everyone outside that group should make any moral person shudder.  Can we really find joy in the vengeance of the Psalmist as it is written in 137:8-9?

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.  Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

The New Testament, too, is not without fault and Paul is especially problematic.  To me, Paul never really became converted to the gospel.  Rather, he took what was most abhorrent from the Old Testament and amplified it, telling the Galatians, for example: "I would they were even cut off which trouble you."  In doing so, he encourages men to emasculate themselves to achieve the aims of heaven.  But this is not all.  In Ephesians he tells slaves to obey their masters, thereby giving tacit approval for this barbaric institution.

If we were to accept every tenant of the Old Testament, we would be spending all our time executing people for crimes that are inconsistent with even the eye-for-an-eye admonition of Moses.  Here is a short list of offenses that deserve death:

• Stubbornness and overeating--Deut 21:18-21
• Cursing--Lev 24:13-14
• Disobeying the Sabbath--Exod 35:2
• Touching pigskin--Lev 11:7-8

Apparently God doesn't like football!  With regard to these and other flaws in scripture, the theologian, John Shelby Spong, says:  

I am now convinced that institutionalized Christianity has become so consumed by its quest for power and authority--most of which is rooted in the excessive claims for the Bible--that the authentic voice of God can no longer be heard within it...  The constant attack of right-wing voices on Christian scholarship is a clear tip-off that they cannot face reality.  When people cannot deal with the message, the ancient and still regularly practiced tactic is to shoot the messenger.

When Saw We Thee?

Jesus once said that there would come a day when He would condemn us for not feeding Him when He was hungry, not clothing Him when He was naked and not ministering to Him when He was sick.  With hearts pierced by guilt, we would reply by asking when we ever saw Him hungry, or naked, or sick.  And He would answer: "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me."

Christ could very well answer our question the following way: When you supported policies that further enriched the wealthy to the detriment of the poor, when you chose to fund the production of bombs while children died from hunger, when you fought against the one chance the nation had to bring healthcare to each of its citizens, you did it contrary to the gospel's directive to love all your neighbors.

In a recent Newsweek article, Andrew Sullivan tells us to, "forget the church, follow Jesus."  Seeing how Christian fundamentalists fight against the most basic aspects of Christ's teachings, Sullivan's admonition is arguably good advice.  In speaking of those teachings, he says:

What were those doctrines? Not the supernatural claims that, fused with politics and power, gave successive generations wars, inquisitions, pogroms, reformations, and counterreformations. Jesus’ doctrines were the practical commandments, the truly radical ideas that immediately leap out in the simple stories he told and which he exemplified in everything he did. Not simply love one another, but love your enemy and forgive those who harm you; give up all material wealth; love the ineffable Being behind all things, and know that this Being is actually your truest Father, in whose image you were made. Above all: give up power over others, because power, if it is to be effective, ultimately requires the threat of violence, and violence is incompatible with the total acceptance and love of all other human beings that is at the sacred heart of Jesus’ teaching. 

 To this I add, Amen.

Faith as a Grain of Mustard Seed

Be patient with me here, because I’ll attempt to show that a popular interpretation of an important scripture is incorrect and leads to corrupted thinking.  First, let me make a rather obvious statement: Math and logic are types of languages. For example, the function f(x) = a + xb can be expressed in plain English as an equation that describes a straight line, where x is the slope. Similarly, the statement “If x, then y” also has a corollary in both grammar and logic.

Consider, for example, the following sentence that is a reference to the game of basketball: “If you are tall, you can rebound.” Here, the initial clause establishes that being tall is a necessary condition for what follows, which is the ability to rebound. Now, I’m not saying the sentence is true. I’m only summarizing what the expression is trying to say. Regarding its veracity, however, most people would agree that all else being equal—relative athleticism, strength, experience, and the ability to leap and grasp—the taller of any two men will be the better rebounder in a game of hoop.

Let’s now make a small adjustment to the sentence. Add the word “even” to the beginning of it and the result is this: Even if you are tall, you can rebound. Anyone who thought the previous sentence was intuitively correct will find fault in this one. Why? With this change the condition of being tall is disparaged. The meaning of the sentence is, in effect, that the ability to rebound is a fait accompli. It will occur despite one being tall.

This is an important distinction because it’s at the center of what I consider a misreading of an important declaration Christ makes in Matthew Chapter 17. In a passage that begins with verse 14, Jesus performs a miracle His disciples had attempted, but failed, to accomplish. When asked why previous efforts had been ineffective, Jesus answers that it was because of the “unbelief” of His followers. He goes on to say:

For verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

Notice that Christ’s words are couched as a conditional statement similar to the one I introduced above. That being said, when people quote the scripture, they tend to disparage faith the size of “a grain of mustard seed” and interpret the statement as though it begins with the term, “Even if.” In doing so, they imply that bigger is better. However one can assume from a literal reading of the scripture that Christ isn’t being critical of a small grain-sized amount of faith, but is presenting a necessary pre-condition for the miraculous in life to occur. It’s possible that He’s describing an ideal!

Perhaps what He’s saying is that faith doesn’t imbue us with power despite its small size, but rather because faith at its most powerful is small and inconspicuous, that it doesn’t walk with a swagger but admits that it doesn’t know. Admitting to a lack of knowledge is the beginning of true learning. On the other hand, when we convince ourselves in an a priori fashion that the Bible is an infallible rendering of reality, then we become apologists to everything it contains, including, for example, its approval of slavery. In this way, apologists don’t discover anything new, because they don’t seek knowledge or wisdom. What they seek is only comfort and confirmation and they’ll obtain both, even if it requires them to ignore facts and discrepancies.

The difference in people who practice true scholarship verses apologetics is remarkable. The difference is especially clear when comparing the accomplishments of the people of my church—the Mormons—verses people who identify as being Jewish. I once heard a Jewish friend of mine say that if you put two Jews in a room, you will have between them five different opinions. That’s because they welcome questions and intellectual inquiry, even if it countermands previously held notions of truth. One of their heroes, the 13th Century thinker Maimonides, coined the phrase “Teach my mouth to say I don’t know.” Maimonides taught that to admit to a lack of knowledge was a noble and courageous act.

To Mormons and other fundamentalist Christian sects, however, doubt and questioning has been elevated to a sin. Disbelief is deemed the fault of individuals, rather than an implication of life’s uncertainty. When scriptures lead to moral ambiguity, it becomes the duty of Christian apologists to ignore the discrepancies. That’s the message of Mormon leaders who have excommunicated church intellectuals for speaking truthfully—but too critically—about the organization’s past. One of its leaders, Boyd K. Packer, has demonstrated his mistrust of intellectual inquiry by saying, “Some things that are true are not very useful.”

How these two differing worldviews translate into a regard for scholarship is clear. There are roughly as many people in this world who self-identify as being Jewish as there are Mormons, but while 185 Jews have earned Nobel Prizes, no Mormon has yet to receive the honor.

Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Repatriation of Offshore Corporate Profits

Yesterday Mitt Romney made a statement about the repatriation of corporate profits that got me hopping mad.  It angered me, in part, because Romney certainly understands the issue better than most people, but obfuscated the truth in order to score political points with an unknowing public.  He said that as president he would encourage the return of a trillion dollars currently held by foreign subsidiaries of US corporations so the funds could be invested in jobs here, rather than in outside markets.  Presumably he would do this by reducing, or eliminating, the income tax on repatriated dollars.  According to him, these dollars arise when a US corporation establishes an offshore presence—his example was an auto plant in China—from which it generates profits.  These profits, he said, will be invested in foreign markets if not brought back to the US.

This analysis is disingenuous on so many levels.  The first is related to how the profits are derived.  Romney is right when he says they’re generated by the foreign operations of US corporations, but what he failed to say is that in most cases the profits arise through something called transfer pricing associated with interactions with shell companies.  Transfer pricing is an important aspect of the tax and treasury operations of many global businesses.  In fact, it’s so important that people who understand its ins-and-outs are paid as if they were professional athletes.

The way transfer pricing works is by first establishing a shell company in a tax haven—the Cayman Islands, for example.  The shell company is then caused to purchase important licenses or other rights that are central to the corporation’s operation.  High tech companies are especially fond of selling software licenses to their offshore entities.  Since the shell companies have no assets, they must raise cash to purchase the licenses, but this is generally accomplished through intercompany loans.  These transactions—the selling of licenses and the borrowings—are, of course, transactions only on paper. 

Here is what a corporation is then able to do.  Every time a product is sold, it owes its foreign shell company a licensing fee, which appears as an expense on the corporation’s income statement and thereby reduces its taxable income.  In other words, this is essentially a means to avoid the payment of tax.  The shell company, on the other hand, is located in a tax haven, and though it receives revenue, it incurs no tax liability.  It can use a portion of the fees it receives to make interest and principal payments on the intercompany loan.  Over time, however, the shell company records substantial excess cash balances that in a real sense represents the parent company's deferred tax obligation. 

If the corporation wishes to repatriate the balances, it can do so through a dividend payment, but that would be a taxable event.  However, teams of tax accountants and lawyers work to come up with other ingenious ways to move cash around, including intercompany lending from the shell company to the parent.  I mention this for several reasons.  First, the repatriation of corporate cash is an issue that arises primarily because global companies have found creative ways to AVOID their tax obligations.  Second, allowing the repatriation to occur in a tax-advantaged manner, as Romney suggests, only gives corporations more reason to continue with the practice.  Third, corporations can find creative ways to return cash to their home operations, but they won't do so until domestic demand increases and requires expansion.  The tax-free repatriation of cash is another example of how conservatives are only interested in supporting corporate and other well-heeled interests and should be flatly rejected.  


Finally, Romney and other conservatives say repatriated dollars will be invested in such a way that it will result in job creation here.  If that's the case, why haven't corporations used the over $2 trillion contained in domestic corporate bank accounts to grow manufacturing?  US corporations are generating tremendous profits due to efficiencies gained through massive layoffs.  They're sitting on those profits and will continue to do so until Americans begin to consume again.  The key to overcoming our economic malaise is not to allow corporations to withhold contributions into the community pot that benefits us all, but to put more cash in the pockets of the middleclass.  It's time corporations pay their fair share. 

The Banality of Evil

I have a book that’s in perfect condition, which is to say it’s tattered and dog eared with many notes in the margins and underlined passages.  Its title is Eichmann in Jerusalem and aside from the New Testament, it has influenced me more than any other book.

It covers, however, the grim topic of the holocaust and is therefore not an easy read.  The author, Hannah Arendt, was a brilliant thinker who tried to answer in its 300, or so, pages the question: How did a relatively well educated and informed German public allow six million of its neighbors to be murdered?  I won’t try to summarize her conclusions, but they are at once insightful and frightening.

The book, of course, is about Adolf Eichmann, who was the man in charge of transporting Jews to their deaths during World War II.  After his kidnapping by Israeli commandos, Eichmann was taken from his hiding place in Argentina and put on trial in Jerusalem.  The hearing was meant to showcase to the world the sufferings of the Jews and the demonic nature of the people who’d caused it.  In the end, however, Eichmann was seen as a pathetic figure, who was only trying to do his job.  In short, he performed a heinous work without ever considering its underlying immorality.  This led Arendt to coin the phrase the banality of evil, as if evil could be so commonplace that it’s unremarkable.  She writes: 

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.  From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together, for it implied—as had been said at Nuremberg over and over again by the defendants and their counsels—that this new type of criminal, who is in actual fact hostis generis humani, commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he is doing wrong.

One of the implications of Arendt’s conclusions is that when people are made to think they’re alone in their beliefs, they will adopt what appears to be the prevailing worldview.  People will, in the sad but accurate parlance of today’s youth, go with the flow.  But this can also work in the reverse.  In a few countries—Denmark, for instance—Nazis who were sent to fulfill the terms of the Final Solution changed their views in the face of majority opposition.  In other words, they not only defied orders, but recognized and admitted to the depravity of their goal. 

It’s essential, therefore, that we refuse to go with the flow and hold dear to personal philosophies that are consistent with moral axioms, but let’s not take the Bible in its entirety as a safe standard.  Quite the contrary, the Bible is unreliable as a definition of moral behavior, because it contains both Mosaic and Christian values that are inconsistent in their descriptions of what is Godly.  In some cases the Bible tells us that Godliness incorporates vengeance and anger.  In other passages it requires unconditional forgiveness.  My suggestion, therefore, is to hold Christ’s great commandments as inviolate—no matter what the Bible might say otherwise—and above all else love our neigbors. 

How Christians can do so and still fight against universal healthcare is beyond any logic that I can understand.  Similarly, I don’t see how we can love our neighbors and not support gay men and women in their efforts to express fidelity in marriage.  In this way, by refusing to hold Christ’s great commandments as inviolate, we are as shifting as the tide.  After all, there is nothing more frightening than a human being with evil intent, unless it’s the mass of humanity with no intent at all. 

Michele Bachmann's God

I’m frightened by religious conservatives.  I worry that if the world is put under their control, we’ll have a society that cares only about getting the government off our backs (except when it comes to the regulation of bedroom behavior).  The flip side of their ideals is the elimination of policies and programs that were meant to actualize our most unselfish and laudable dreams. 

For now, the poster child of the movement seems to be Michele Bachmann, who recently said in a campaign speech:

I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians.  We’ve had an earthquake, we’ve had a hurricane.  He (God) said, “Are you going to start listening to me here?”

If this was meant as a joke, it doesn’t even deserve a smirk.  Irene left 24 dead and billions of dollars in property damage in her wake.  To suggest that the storm was God’s will is ridiculous, but the sentiment is consistent with a belief among right wing Christians that God is vengeful and angry and quick to destroy what He has created in order to get attention.  If that’s God’s true nature, why do we worship Him except to avoid destruction?  And if we only worship Him to avoid destruction, how can we say He’s a God of love, or that we’re unselfish in our obedience?

Bachmann’s assertion reminds me of the language rules that Nazi Germany once employed to make unconscionable acts appear noble and to mitigate the opinions of detractors.  The murder of Jews, for example, was described in reports and other documents as The Final Solution, as if the holocaust was just a small problem on the way to getting fixed.  Heinrich Himmler could move grown men to tears with speeches that acknowledged the horror of the genocide, but would assure troops that the work was for a grand and righteous purpose that only the strong in heart had the moral character to fulfill.  Yet it was still murder.

Is it true that God took 24 lives to show His displeasure over Washington politics?  Not the God I worship.

Catch the Irony?

I served a mission for the Mormon Church in Tokyo, Japan.  While I don't share many of the fundamental beliefs of its membership anymore, I consider my missionary service as one of the finest things I've ever done.  But here's a tiny example of what I find disturbing about the work and what it does to the young men and women who provide the selfless service. 

One of the lessons we taught to investigators of the church was a doctrine referred to as the Plan of Salvation.  According to Mormon theology, we came to earth after living as spirits in God's presence and did so for two important reasons: 1) to gain a body and 2) to have the memory of the pre-existence taken from us so that we could learn to live by faith.  Regarding the second purpose, we were quick to say that faith was not a perfect knowledge, but something akin to belief.  However, no sooner would we teach this than my companion would invariably say (because I refused to make such a statement) that he knew these things were true. 

Do you see the irony?  So few Christians do.  For the most part they acknowledge the need for faith--even agree that faith has more to do with uncertainty than perfect knowledge--but then they fill their lives with dogma.  Saying one has faith in the Bible is entirely different than forcing one's reality to conform to the Bible's teachings.  Yet, that's what many Christians do when rejecting science in favor of scripture.  Remember how pious church leaders forced Galileo to do the same and turned back the clock on the human understanding of the solar system?  Recall also that a variety of evil acts have been perpetuated--slavery, for example--by using scripture to support them. 

In my opinion, faith should be the thing we cling to until the truth of a matter is made evident.  Now, of that I can bear testimony.

Common Sense and Elitism

There is a faction of people in this country who wield considerable political influence that seem to react with skepticism to all ideas supported by science and academia.  They justify their positions by using two phrases that cunningly disguise dangerous prejudices as noble attributes.  Those two terms are: 1) common sense and 2) elitism.  While the former is deemed to be good and the latter bad, the labels are used in ways to depict educated people as harboring ulterior motives that run counter to the interests of others and that those without book learning have an instinctive gut-level understanding of what is right.

To many people of this faction, all the truth and knowledge they need is contained in the Bible.  To them I ask the following two questions:

1.   Which version of truth and knowledge are you referring to?  Does it include the injunction not to kill, or does it allow the killing and displacing of others because God told Israel to take the Promised Land?  Does it require adulterers to be stoned, or does it demand forgiveness?  Does it give us complete dominion over the earth, or ask us to nourish and replenish it?  Does it teach us that we’re obligated to love only our friends, or that we must love everyone?  The reason I ask is because all of the above can be justified by reference to Biblical verse.

2.   Do you recognize the value of any knowledge not contained in the Bible?  If not, perhaps you should discard your television (and with it Sean Hannity’s daily drivel on Faux News).  After all, the Bible says nothing about quantum mechanics, which is the scientific basis for television.  Neither does it speak of democracy, DNA, combustion engines, penicillin, a Constitution that addresses civil rights and any of a range of value-producing concepts and technologies.

The point I hope to make is that suspicion and rejection of learning occurs at our peril and it occurs with increasing frequency.  If history teaches us anything, it’s that truth is far more complicated than anyone can grasp at first blush.  Understanding takes time and effort.  What initially appears obvious is rarely a full story.  Take, for example, the idea that parallel lines never intersect.  If that common sense notion hadn’t been overturned after thousands of years of universal acceptance, the non-Euclidean geometries allowing for curved space would never have been developed.  By extension, the ultimate elitist, Einstein, wouldn’t have uncovered the physical relationships behind his General Theory of Relativity. 

Today there are other disciplines even less understood by lay people than what is generally known about physics.  One is evolution (which most fundamental Christians assume to be fallacious and therefore never crack open a book to study)—another is the workings of capital markets.  The latter I know something about, so let me make a point about it.  The idea—which Tea Party loyalists espouse—that the US can default on its debt without dire global consequences is moronic.  Anyone with capital markets experience understands that the effects of regulatory and governmental decisions often result in problematic and unanticipated consequences on market liquidity.  Making funding less available in an already wounded economy would be devastating.  If there has been one thing the Fed and economists have consistently misunderstood it’s the consequences of too much, or too little, liquidity in capital markets. 

When government and Wall Street leaders confer, it shouldn’t be taken as evidence of collusion at the expense of common people.  During WW II, when it occurred to subject matter experts that the power of the atom could be harnessed to produce a powerful weapon, did government leaders gather a room of couch potatoes to consider next steps?  Of course not.  To determine the best course of action, many of the greatest physicists of the day were assembled and that led to the Manhattan Project.  In the same way, the fact that government leaders elicit the opinions of Wall Street executives should be deemed a necessary part of any carefully reasoned due diligence process. 

The same can be said about a number of important issues that our world and country face.  When Michele Bachmann says—despite considerable scientific evidence to the contrary—that the heightened level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is a harmless “natural byproduct of nature,” we have to assume her common sense is little more than unreasoned stupidity and that the elitists, backed by scientific research and analysis, know better.

Christian Rejection of Science

I was recently driving in an area that I don’t frequent often and was in search of a news broadcast.  As I flipped through various radio channels, one caught my attention.  It was from a Christian station that played what sounded like a public service announcement.  The gist of the message was this:

The complexity of life couldn’t possibly have been the result of an accident.  Think about it.  Doesn’t it make more sense that a divine being made everything around you, just as it is?

The point was clear: Evolution is a lie and the Bible tells us so. 

I immediately felt a mixture of sadness and anger.  My feelings were especially sharp as I had recently finished the book, Endless Forms Most Beautiful by geneticist Sean Carroll.  It’s a wonderful summary of recent discoveries in the science of evolutionary development (or Evo Devo, as some call it).  Evo devo looks at genetic processes that occur during embryonic development for clues to how evolution works.  It’s a fascinating new science, from which we’ve learned a considerable amount.  In fact, the book startled me with its sweeping understanding of how life comes about. 

To thoughtful and open-minded people it’s clear that evolutionists haven’t been deceived.  On the other hand, those who believe that an ancient text (written for a civilization with no grasp of basic science) must be read literally are sadly mistaken.  Even if we assume God wrote the Bible, we have to believe He simplified the truths of His existence for us to understand it.  As I’ve said before, there’s a reason Genesis quotes God as saying, “Let there be light,” instead of, “Let the universe be filled isotropically and homogeneously with a high-energy density.”  It’s the same reason we don’t describe light’s wave-particle duality and how each wavelength corresponds to our perception of a color when a child asks, “Why is the sky blue?” 

One of the interesting discoveries coming out of evolutionary development is that genomes are not, as many people assume, blueprints of the creatures they represent.  Rather, they’re more akin to recipes that direct the expression of various proteins during embryonic development.  A small portion of any genome—less than 2% in humans—are so-called toolkit genes that provide key instructions.  Another 3% act as switches that turn the toolkit genes off and on.   What’s remarkable is that the same toolkit genes appear in species after species—fruit flies as well as humans—with only minor variations that determine when and where they’re expressed.  Using these learnings as building blocks, one can draw an evolutionary roadmap based upon gradual changes in genetic makeup. 

I think it’s tragic that some people will read this and dismiss it immediately, all because of an interpretation of the Bible that misses the point of who we believe God to be.  If God is so great, how can we assume He speaks to us on His level?  Isn’t it more reasonable to assume that he relates to us as children and speaks to us in simple ways that might not fully express the details behind broad assertions?

For more information about evo devo, click here. 

Love Wins

Someone recently commented about my blog, saying my opinion of Leviticus as an obsolete law was wrong since, in his words: “The Ten Commandments are absolute according to the author.”  Clearly he thought I must repent of the view or suffer eternal torment.  It’s a sentiment I’ve heard before and so it didn’t surprise me. 

Since then an interesting thing happened.  The evangelist, Rob Bell, came out with his book, Love Wins, that proffers a view of Christianity that’s kinder than the version espoused by most religious fundamentalists.  He rejects, for example, the possibility of hell and damnation, putting stock in scriptures that speak of a restoration and reconciliation of all things both in heaven and in earth. 

His assertion is not without detractors.  Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary says: “When you adopt universalism and erase the distinction between the church and the world, then you don’t need the church and you don’t need Christ, and you don’t need the cross.  This is the tragedy of non-judgmental mainline liberalism, and it’s Rob Bell’s tragedy in this book too.”  His point is that without the idea of a heaven and a hell, Christianity is little more than a moral philosophy. 

My reaction to that is: So what?  If a generalized and corrected belief in that moral philosophy results in a compassionate world uninhibited by irrational fear, so what?  Wouldn’t that please God?  And the idea isn't without precedence.  Prior to the convening of the First Council of Nicea, many Christians didn’t believe in the atonement and Christ’s lineage as the son of God.  Elaine Pagels’ histories of the early church summarize a debate that led to the cannonization of scriptures (such as the Gospel of John) that put Jesus at the center of salvation, while eschewing other sacred texts (such as the Gospel of Thomas) that acknowledged no such role. 

Bell also has a problem with the notion that people who haven’t professed faith in Jesus are to be damned.  He writes:

…for many the essential idea is that the only way to get into heaven is to pray at some point in your life, asking God to forgive you and telling God that you accept Jesus, you believe Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for your sins, and you want to go to heaven when you die.  Some call this “accepting Christ,” others call it the “sinner’s prayer,” and still others call it “getting saved,” being “born again,” or being “converted.”

So is it true that the kind of person you are doesn’t ultimately matter, as long as you’ve said or prayed or believed the right things? 

Clearly Bell doesn’t think so.  How could a loving God damn one of His children for not believing in the right thing?

Choosing Our Truths

Many years ago, my church was involved in a pissing match with its own academics who were examining church history from a dispassionate scholarly perspective. Before taking drastic action (eventually several professors were excommunicated) one of the church's Apostles, Boyd K. Packer, gave an address that was meant to rein in activities that had been deemed overly critical. His remarks have haunted me ever since. Among them Packer made several statements that have since been repeated at various times when the church experienced one embarrassing episode or another. The central theme of his address can be summarized by the following excerpt.

There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful.

This begs a question: Useful for what purpose? Packard goes on to describe the effort to explain church history as a kind of war--a war in which members should take strong positions.

In the Church we are not neutral. We are one-sided. There is a war going on, and we are engaged in it. It is the war between good and evil, and we are belligerents defending the good. We are therefore obliged to give preference to and protect all that is represented in the gospel...In an effort to be objective, impartial, and scholarly, a writer or a teacher may unwittingly be given equal time to the adversary.

(The entire discourse can be found at: http://byustudies.byu.edu/shop/pdfSRC/21.3Packer.pdf)

There is so much in his comments that sadden me, as it's a perfect example of the problem of apologetic thinking. Packer profers the Mormon view that the church is "true" (i.e. perfect and correct in all its particulars) as an undisputed fact and condemns any action that would question it. By getting members to agree to this thinking, the only option they have is to build upon the premise without ever considering its value. He essentially says, "Don't worry about the truthfulness of the church. That has been established. Your duty is to do everything in your power to depict the church as true--even by ignoring evidence that contradicts the premise."

This idea reminds me of what happened during China's cultural revolution (not to mention other horrific episodes in our earth's history). Ying Chang Compestine, who was a child living in China during the 60s, summarizes the advent of the cultural revolution by saying: One day children were encouraged to ask questions--the next day, they were told they didn't need to know. In this way, to tell members that there are things they don't need to know about their church--things that are perhaps true, but not useful--is little more than an attempt at mind control.

There are all kinds of ways to effect mind control. All it takes is to prevent otherwise curious people from asking questions. Today's debate on healthcare, which appears more focused on ideology than fact, is a case in point. Recent coverage of town hall meetings record a public discourse that has become a shouting match full of unproven and hollow assertions, where people seem more concerned with scoring points--even to the extent of distorting the truth--than in ascertaining what is best for the public good. Arguments are couched in terms of their consistency with the ideals of our nation's founders, when those who make such claims are clearly no more familiar with the Constitution as they are with Shinto scripture. Shouting down people's questions and misquoting Jefferson are two ways to prevent an "un-useful" truth from getting heard.

Adam's Transgression

There are aspects of the biblical account of Adam’s transgression that I’ve always found disturbing, but never heard addressed—never, that is, except once in a youth Sunday School class that I attended thirty years ago.

The teacher, Sister Brownlee, had handed out Bibles and asked us to take turns reading the story of Adam and Eve. You’re familiar, no doubt, with the account. It tells of how God gave His first human creations a fertile garden and only two conditions regarding its use. First, He told them to multiply and replenish the earth. Second, He forbade them to eat a certain fruit, even warned them not to touch the tree bearing it or they would die. Though God’s mandate was clear, Satan—disguised as a serpent—slithered into Eden’s tranquility and tempted Adam and Eve to break that important second commandment.

He told them, “Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” In the end, the temptation was more than Adam and Eve could ignore.

Of that day the Bible says:

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

Sister Brownlee asked us to consider the charity of our Creator. Adam and Eve had everything they needed, but do you see what they did? They stole from the source of their good fortune. She seemed ready to complete the thought and offer a comparison to our own lives, to say that God has given us much, yet we turn on Him in disobedience. Before she could do so, I raised my hand.

“God told Adam and Eve that they would die if they ate the fruit,” I said, “but they didn’t. Why is that? Was God just bluffing to make His children obey?”

Today, the question still seems like a good one to me, but by Sister Brownlee’s reaction, it was clear that I’d treaded into sensitive theological territory. Perhaps she thought I was accusing God of lying. “God speaks only the truth,” she said, frowning. “In a way, Adam and Eve did die because their offense robbed them of life with God. They became sinful and unworthy of His spirit. They were so guilt-ridden that they hid themselves from their Creator. The real liar was the serpent, Lucifer, who convinced Adam and Eve to transgress.”

It occurred to me as I pondered Sister Brownlee’s answer that it hadn’t really addressed my question. In fact, if anything, it had only suggested other questions that I couldn’t wait to ask. Without raising a hand, I said, “The serpent told Adam and Eve that they would learn the difference between good and evil, and that happened. Their eyes were opened. The Bible says so. The serpent led them to knowledge—a knowledge God seemed happy to keep from them. Why is that?”

There was a nervous twitter in the class, but Sister Brownlee forced herself to smile and explained. “Your confusion is understandable,” she said, “but this is an example of how the devil uses half-truths to confuse people. That’s why we need faith to keep from being deceived.”

Suddenly a thought entered my head, like traffic noise through a thin wall. At first I tried to ignore it, but it got my attention. Sister Brownlee had been dealt a question for which there was no answer, but she wouldn’t admit to the deficiency. Instead, she used the same wedge that has separated humankind from a great deal of worthwhile inquiry: the admonition to accept without questions. I knew even then that logic leads to intellectual canyons into which we must take a leap of faith. Yet our teacher had couched that leap in terms of truth and that wasn’t right, even if she could create an ignorant bliss by doing so.

But I digress. For those of you who believe the Bible to be the unadulterated word of God, let me reiterate the two questions:

1. Why did God warn Adam and Eve of a consequence that ultimately did not occur?
2. Why did God seem to want Adam and Eve to remain ignorant? (Not until they ate the forbidden fruit were their eyes opened, which was exactly what the serpent promised would happen).

Proof of Uncertainty

Kurt Godel proved that in any axiomatic mathematical system there are propositions that cannot be proved or disproved within the axioms of the system.

You’ve heard me say that logic invariably leads to faith, but don’t take my word for it. There’s considerable evidence to support the idea and people who love the hard sciences will especially appreciate it, because the confirmation comes from logic itself.

As an introduction, consider the 19th Century worldview and how it changed going into our modern age. Throughout the 1800s, there was great enthusiasm and optimism in the power of logic. Earlier scientific and mathematical discoveries—Newton’s classical physics, for example—had uncovered what seemed to be an elegant symmetry in nature, which gave intellectuals a view that all things could be understood in terms of scientific laws. In fact, people (the great Emmanuel Kant, included) believed the logic inherent in science would eventually lead to an understanding of the mind of God.

But cracks began to appear in this deterministic construct. One of the first was the development of non-Euclidean geometries that rejected a postulate used in the plane geometry we study in high school. The possibility that other postulates might be incorrect or of limited value ushered in an age of uncertainty that additional scientific and mathematical discovery only amplified.

The study of physics, for example, added to the disquiet. As physicists delved more deeply into the interactions of subatomic particles, they discovered that such relationships were based upon probabilities rather than strict rules as had been previously supposed. To make matters worse, one implication of the discovery was that the result of any subatomic interaction didn’t finalize until a sentient being observed it. To understand what this means, consider that old philosophical conundrum: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Well, according to one interpretation of quantum mechanics—the Copenhagen version first posited by the Nobel Laureate, Niels Bohr—the tree doesn’t even fall! Its subatomic particles remain in what is referred to as a probability wave until a sentient observer comes along. Thereupon the particles “choose” one of the infinite range of possibilities available to them. (My son, who is working on a physics PhD, tells me no one really believes that’s what happens, although it is consistent with the inexplicable results of various experiments. For more on this, see the book Schrodinger’s Kittens and the Search for Reality, by John Gribbin, which in my opinion is the best book about quantum mechanics written for lay people).

Perhaps one of the most significant discoveries that increased the uncertain worldview of our time was made by Bertrand Russell, a man who had once been a proponent of mathematical determinism. Russell discovered a logical inconsistency in set theory that is evident in the following question:

A man of Seville is shaved by the barber of Seville, if and only if, the man doesn’t shave himself. Does the barber shave himself?

The paradox can be described in a rigorous mathematical way, but consider the following simplification: Obviously, the barber of Seville either shaves himself or he doesn’t. Regardless, however, the result is illogical. If he shaves himself, he cannot be shaved by the barber of Seville, but since he is the barber of Seville and he shaves himself...well, you get the point. The problem, as Russell was able to distinguish, can occur anytime a set is an element of itself. For example, the set of men shaved by the barber of Seville (let’s call this A) is not an element of itself, because A is not a man shaved by the barber of Seville. However, let’s create another set (which we’ll call R) and include in it everything that is not in set A. Since set R is also not a man who is shaved by the barber of Seville, it is an element of itself, a characteristic often called self-referencing. This may seem like a trivial matter, but self-referencing can lead to serious logical problems and points to the limitations of logic.

Finally, let me describe a theorem that is simplistically sneaky, but has implications that have essentially put an end to strict mathematical determinism. I’m talking about Kurt Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem, which like Russell’s Paradox, has a rigorous mathematical rendering, but can be described in simplified terms.

Let’s say you create a computer that you call the Universal Truth Machine (or UTM for short) which you’ve programmed to tell the truth. Before approaching it, you write the following words on a sheet of paper:

The UTM will never say this sentence is true.

Now, you turn the UTM on, show it the paper and ask if the statement is true. What happens? First, the UTM can’t say the statement is true. Can you see why? If it does, the statement will be rendered false, which is contrary to the UTM’s programming. In a paradoxical way, the fact that the computer will not say the statement is true is your greatest evidence that the statement is, in fact, true. On the other hand, the UTM can’t say the statement is false, either, since as we’ve already demonstrated, that would be untrue. (Another way to look at it is if the UTM said the statement was false, it would render the statement true).
Again, the result seems contrived and trivial, but the math is sophisticated and full of implications. In short, Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem suggests that rational thought can never penetrate to the ultimate truth, or said another way: There are truths that cannot be discerned, or proved, strictly through the use of logic.

Touched by the Spirit

In response to one of my earlier blogs, Jack said the following:

I think you've overlooked the fact that when the spirit testifies of something (like, for example, that God lives) then you have your proof. That's more proof than anything a mathematician can show on paper.

To Jack and anyone else who cares to listen, let me relate a personal experience.

After Lori and I were married, we attended church at a Mormon ward that was comprised of young married students. I was asked, at the time, to organize regular events during which the ward members could gather and listen to speakers address issues of secular interest. Soon after accepting the responsibility, I heard of a man who’d uncovered numerous historical documents from the church's early days. I gave him a call and asked if he would speak to my congregation. He agreed without reservation.

On the evening of the event, the man came at the appointed time and brought several examples of documents he had uncovered. They included a fragment that contained Queen Isabella’s signature and another that came from an original Declaration of Independence. However, the document he showcased was a letter written by Lucy Mack Smith, the mother of the Mormon Church’s first prophet, Joseph Smith. He handed out copies of the letter printed on expensive parchment paper. I wish I still had my copy, but alas, I’ve lost it.

The letter was addressed to one of Lucy Mack Smith’s relations and told of the work Joseph was accomplishing to bring forth the Book of Mormon. He had, according to the letter, translated over 100 pages that Lucy referred to as the Book of Lehi. Two aspects of the letter’s contents are noteworthy. First, the over 100 pages (actually 116) were subsequently lost and never recovered. According to Mormon theology, God instructed Joseph to, rather than retranslate the work, replace it with a translation of another source document. Therefore, the contents of the original manuscript are the subject of much speculation. Nowhere that I know of, aside from the letter ascribed to Lucy Mack Smith, are there any claims that the lost pages were known as the Book of Lehi.

Second, the letter gives insight into Book of Mormon events that aren’t recorded in the current version. For example, the Book of Mormon talks of a prophet Lehi, who after prophesying of the destruction of Jerusalem, took his family into the desert to await further instruction from God. There, God ordered Lehi to send his sons back to Jerusalem to convince a man named Ishmael to accompany them into the wilderness. This was necessary, according to the account, so that Lehi’s sons would have Ishmael’s daughters to marry. As part of the letter’s commentary on the event, Lucy Mack Smith told her relation that Ishmael was Lehi’s brother and therefore knew of Lehi’s standing with God. That information is not included in the Book of Mormon today.

The reason this remains so clear in my memory is because the man who shared the document with us, became quite emotional as he referenced this section of the letter. He told us that he’d always wondered what would cause Ishmael to walk into the desert (after all, the invitation of a few young men who were hungry for his daughters seemed insufficient) but the letter answered his nagging question. When I say the man became emotional, what I mean is he shed tears of what appeared to be joy and gratitude, and with a wavering voice he shared a powerful testimony that the Book of Mormon was what it claimed to be: God’s word. I have to say that I was moved by what the man said, and judging from the sniffles and smiles from others who’d come to listen, I wasn’t alone. By the end of the evening, I was being congratulated for organizing a wonderful faith-promoting experiencing.

Why am I telling you this story?

If you’re familiar with events that shook the Salt Lake Valley in 1985, you’ll know that the Lucy Mack Smith letter is a forgery created by the very man who came to speak at the gathering I'd arranged. That man, Mark Hoffman, was the creator of dozens of similar forged documents, including one that is now known as the Salamander Letter, which supposedly quotes Joseph Smith and is an account of a white salamander that gave Joseph directions to where the source record for the Book of Mormon could be found. Yet, that’s not Mark Hoffman at his worst. In an effort to protect the secret of his forgeries, the man murdered two people and is now behind bars for the rest of his life.

My question is: Why would I—and others, too—have felt the spirit, if it confirmed what amounted to a lie? Perhaps it wasn’t the spirit, after all, but an emotional response based upon William James’ will to believe. The fact is, as I’ve asserted elsewhere, we can’t know if God is speaking to us, although it would be nice to think He does.

What I’ve written here isn’t an isolated case, as I could give other examples. For instance, my first spiritual experience was in the Vatican, while I sang with a choir in Saint Peters Basilica. Most Mormons would object if I were to say that the spirit had come to testify of Catholicism. Then, a year later, I decided to go on a mission after hearing a church leader, Paul H. Dunn, speak. Dunn was an extraordinary orator, who had tremendous influence over the youth of the church. During his address he spoke of once being a pitcher for the Saint Louis Cardinals and of his exploits as a decorated soldier in the Korean War. Though I was filled with what I presumed then to be the spirit, subsequent developments have cast a shadow on that special moment in my life. You see, a journalist began looking into Dunn’s background and discovered that he’d never played professional baseball, neither had he fought in a war. When this information came to light, Dunn was quickly put on emeritus status by the church.

In a future blog, I’d like to use Mormon scripture to show how difficult it is to “hear” God’s instructions, but for now, let’s acknowledge the difficulty and the underlying uncertainty involved. At the very least, we might admit that such an experience is not proof at all, but a jumping off place for our leap of faith.

The Leap of Faith

Someone recently asked me to clarify what I mean about a leap of faith and why I claim that all people experience it. Let me begin by saying that I take a more inclusive view on the nature of faith. To me, it’s any unproven, or un-provable, premise upon which we base our decisions. I realize that most people see faith as a religious construct. However, I recognize little difference in the effect of 1) believing God wills the sun to rise in the morning, versus 2) believing the interaction of gravitational fields causes the phenomenon. Eventually, one has to put trust in a concept that is unseen.

I know what you’re thinking. One might object by saying gravity is a proven physical property, whereby God’s existence is not. To this I say: Proof, at a personal level, is something that occurs in the intellect and heart. For instance, going back to the concept of gravity, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time trying to fathom Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, which is sometimes described as a theory of gravity. While Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity is quite easy to conceptualize (first-year physics students are required to understand it) the General Theory is dense and requires a background in complex mathematics, including non-Euclidean geometry, to master. To fully comprehend it, one must go beyond the conceptual breakthrough Einstein achieved in equating gravity with acceleration. Though I believe in his theories, I’m relegated to only professing faith in them. Despite much effort otherwise, I don’t understand his work in any degree that I can call knowledge. Furthermore, I can’t see gravity. All I can see of it is what I presume to be gravity’s effects, including the earth’s orbit around the sun.

What I’ve just described is also akin—I might say, nearly identical—to my faith in God. Though in many ways God remains a mystery to me, logic has led me to believe in His existence and the value of the gospel of love and kindness He espouses. The logical pathway that has led me to a subsequent leap of faith is perhaps the topic of another discussion, but for now let me say this: I’ve come to believe in God, not through any willy-nilly process, but through study and contemplation of life’s experiences. Yet, I’m quick to admit that my concept of Him might be wrong or incomplete, which notion keeps me learning and allows my faith to rest comfortably beside Einstein’s (and Darwin’s, as well as other people’s) theories. In fact, I’m convinced that God wants us—above all else—to never end our search for knowledge and to accept what is true no matter where truth is found. That idea is contained in the following poem I penned many years ago:

Drawing its timelessness incapsulated,
As from an apothecary’s jar,
The word stretched me beyond horizons
To give me a sense of God.

For what of Godliness,
Unless it be unfettered, unchained,
Free of horizons constraining mortal men?

Its good news changed this mortal’s course,
Having swallowed
(But being swallowed in return)
And hearing Him, who was more than philosopher say:
“Know the truth,”
I’ve searched.

But the search continues,
For somewhere unbound and never-resting,
The father of my soul urges onward,
To walk the path free of mortal constraints,
To be like him:
Unfettered and unchained.

A belief that the sun will rise tomorrow—whether it’s derived from religious faith, logic, or a combination of the two—results in behavior that plans and prepares for the eventuality. In the same way, if we were confident the sun would never rise again, would we go to work tomorrow? Most of us, I’m sure, would huddle with family and other loved ones in an expression of love and devotion until the end came or we were proved wrong. This result would be the same, whether rooted in scriptural or scientific revelation. To that extent, the effects of our assumptions are similar, no matter how they’re derived.

Here, I must be allowed a digression: Would the holocaust—or the inquisition, or slavery, for that matter—have occurred without religion? In my opinion, immoral and selfish people would have justified such abhorrent acts on the basis of some other philosophy or pseudo science. In each case, it was political gain and wealth that people were after and tortured logic made God a convenient scapegoat. (I’d like to discuss this in more detail in some future blog).

But back to my point: Another way to express a leap of faith is to say thinking people, over the course of their lifetimes, acquire sets of values based upon personal inquiries that little differ whether approached from a religious or secular perspective. These personal inquiries include the following:

• Is there a God who loves me and can intercede on my behalf?
• Is there a purpose for me in life? If so, how can I actualize it?
• What is the nature of human beings? Are they good, evil, or neither?
• What is proper behavior and what is its calculus?

Notice two things about these questions. First, they have been—and will continue to be—asked by spiritual and secular thinkers alike, and are as important to reason-loving Plato as to the deeply pious Kant. They are the purview of both religion and social science, and are topics central to what Mortimer Adler calls, “The Great Conversation,” which every generation must consider for itself. Second, none of these questions can be answered by pointing to indisputable physical proof, but must be concluded on a deeply personal basis. The process of answering these questions is the universal leap of faith of which I speak.

The resulting faith—the set of assumptions we each acquire—gives birth to core values and becomes the basis for every decision made. However, as I’ve said many times before, these decisions are rooted in beliefs rather than knowledge and we should be open to the possibility that better choices are available.

Logic Leads to Faith

In an earlier blog, I reiterated a statement that I’ve made numerous times. In short, I believe that behind each momentous decision we make, we can trace a logical line of justification that eventually leads to a leap of faith. At various times I’ve described that process as a leap into a canyon of uncertainty or wonder. In response, DC said the following:

True, logic—and evidence—take us only so far in knowing and understanding, but “canyons of wonder” can thrive happily in “faithless” uncertainty. Wonder does not lead inevitably to faith…

Let me try to articulate why I think otherwise by first saying that my idea of faith includes any reliance on an unproven premise as a guide to correct behavior. For example, I don’t know for a fact that the phenomenon we call global warming is caused by greenhouse gas emissions, yet there seems to be evidence of a causal link between the two and so I’ve taken steps to reduce my consumption of the earth’s resources. In the final analysis, I believe we all have a responsibility to the earth. To me, that is as much a leap of faith as refraining to murder only because the Bible says it’s a sin.

To further demonstrate what I mean, let’s say three men (Alex, Bob and Corey) at different times come across the same parked car at the side of a road. They notice that the vehicle is unlocked with the key still in the ignition and the identical idea occurs to each of them—I could easily take this car—but, based upon vastly different premises, they resist the temptation. The grounds by which they make their decisions are as follows:

• Alex thinks he would get caught in the act, the consequence of which would exceed his desire for the car
• Bob decides to act in accordance with the law, which he believes is the key to social harmony and stability
• Corey considers the needs of the car owner and reconfirms his commitment to do no harm to others

In terms of the construct I introduced in my very first blog, Alex is following the Law of the Jungle, which encourages him to insure his own survival and seek personal gain to the exclusion of any and all other objectives. Presumably, if he’d thought he could avoid the possible consequences, Alex would have stolen the car. Bob, on the other hand, is following the Mosaic Law, which instructs him to avoid certain acts, including theft. This heuristic set of rules has become his reference guide to life. Finally, Corey is following Christ’s gospel, which encourages him to let love and conscience direct his behavior. The gospel’s requirements are less formalized and often require some amount of improvisation. How do we love our neighbor? There is no gospel equivalent to Leviticus.

In the end, all three men take what is arguably the correct course of action by not stealing the vehicle, but their motivations put them on differing planes. Of the three, who do you consider to be the most trustworthy? As William James was famous for asserting, knowing a person’s “philosophy” is quite possibly the most important thing we can understand about him, since it is the best predictor of how he will act in the future. Now, for purposes of my argument, it’s important to point out that, despite their contrasting motivations, each man could have reached his conclusion by first asking, “Why shouldn’t I steal the car?” and validating the answer by asking, “How do I know my conclusion is correct?”

For inquiring minds, the second question often leads to a string of logical inquiries, until the questioner eventually arrives at one of the canyons of uncertainty of which I spoke. For instance, returning to the example above, Bob, upon seeing the unlocked car, might have processed the following logic in his head.

Question: Why shouldn’t I steal the car?
Answer: Because God commanded me to do otherwise
Question: How do I know that?
Answer: Because the Bible says so and it’s God’s word
Question: How do I know that?
Answer: Because the spirit testifies that it is so
Question: How do I know that?
Answer: Because I’ve felt the spirit
Question: How do I know that?

Eventually, a truly honest Bob will admit that he doesn’t know if he has felt God’s spirit testify of the Bible’s truthfulness. He may have been moved by the Bible’s words, but that isn’t evidence of a Godly communion. People of other faiths, after all, seem similarly motivated by texts they deem sacred and are willing to die as proof of their confidence. So the way we’re sometimes touched by Biblical teachings could be an emotional response (though admittedly a powerful, life-changing and often good response) rather than a spiritual communion, whatever that entails.
Yet, even if we were in contact with God’s spirit, how can we know we've interpreted it correctly? As I’ve said before, if God is as great as we believe, His thoughts must be beyond human understanding. (Think of Einstein squared, or cubed). Is it possible, for example, that the nightmare of the inquisition was God’s will? Or could it have been a terrible misinterpretation of God’s intent. What I’m trying to say is that at some point in the process of logically defining who and what we are, we must admit that we’re making value judgments that we cannot know as fact.
Furthermore, one need not be a Christian to go through the same exercise. Let's say Bob is a scientist, who has no religious bias, whatsoever. Perhaps his thinking would follow more along these lines:
Question: Why shouldn't I steal the car?
Answer: Because that would be wrong
Question: How do I know that?
Answer: Because society has decided, through long experience, that stealing leads to chaos, which would be intolerable for everyone
Question: How do I know that?
Answer: Because I can imagine the consequences of a world in which all people steal, but I guess that is a supposition on my part and I really don't know that for a fact
That doesn’t mean, however, that we live life in a corner, shaking from the possibility—no, the certainty—that we will occasionally be wrong. On the contrary, once we know where we stand, we act with assurance that we’ve done our best to define the lines that make us who we are. However, we are equally willing to redefine those lines, when contrary evidence demands it, and we respect the actions of others to define themselves, as long as such actions do no harm.

Examining Our Assumptions

When I was just a kid, my mom drove me nuts with a sort of inquisition she conducted on a near-daily basis. As soon as I would walk through the door—before I could even think about getting a snack or turning on the television—she would say: “Did you ask any good questions at school today?”

That would mark the start of a drawn-out conversation. If my answer was no, she would want to know why (and if I intended to do anything with my life). On the other hand, if I answered yes, she would want to hear the question and understand its context. She would ask how the teacher and the other students had reacted, all of which subjected the event to considerable scrutiny. There was an upside, however, because on the occasions when I could report an especially clever question, it was enough to make my mom’s day. I could count on a favorite entrée at dinner that evening. I might even be allowed to stay up a little past my bedtime.

Back then I figured all mothers were like that, so it didn’t seem peculiar to me. Today, however, I find it interesting that she never once asked if I’d answered any questions. To her, the best indication of an active mind was the ability to probe and prod. Knowing a bunch of answers didn’t impress her, at all.

It wasn’t until I was an adult that I met someone else who loved good questions the way my mom did. His name was John Meriweather and he was, at the time, the president of Salomon Brothers. I received a call from him one day not long after joining the firm’s Tokyo office. He’d heard that I was working on a new deal and he wanted to know more about it. When I started to summarize the transaction, he stopped me and said it was best to have the conversation face-to-face. The following week, I traveled to New York to meet him.

Little did I know that two other people—Larry Hilibrand, who’d earned a $15 million bonus for his trading performance the year before, and Myron Scholes, who would later earn a Nobel Prize for his work in developing an option pricing model—would be in the meeting with us. We sat down and John promptly asked me to explain the structure of the deal I’d developed. It was, quite simply, based upon a quirk in the Japanese tax code, which could be used to minimize the tax liability of certain investors. It took me five minutes to offer a summary, after which I soon lost track of the conversation. Scholes, Hilibrand and especially Meriweather took the implications of the deal to a place I’d not foreseen and put it in a bigger picture that included its affect on other capital flows. For me, it was a fascinating glimpse into the way extraordinary minds worked. In particular, I noticed two things: one, their interaction was effective, in part, because they were willing to challenge each other’s assumptions and two, they were far more concerned with articulating the right questions than in reaching correct conclusions. As I heard Meriweather say: “Ask the right questions and the answers follow.”

To say Meriweather is a smart man is like saying Richard Petty can drive a car. To this day, I’ve never met anyone who compares with him in intellectual terms. I didn’t get to know him well—after all, I was just a grunt back then—but I knew enough about him to understand the source of his mental prowess: He had a boundless curiosity and a deep love for the question, “Why?” In fact, it soon became apparent to me that before asking him a favor, it was best to prepare answers to two questions: Why does it matter? Why should I believe it?

And therein is a powerful code for life that both my mom and John Meriweather would doubtless appreciate: Be curious and never stop asking questions. This, unfortunately, is the antithesis of what many Christian organizations teach. Their notions of faith often require unquestioning reliance upon church decrees and literal interpretations of scripture. Ask, “Why?” and brows furrow. It’s because God says so, is one inevitable reply. It’s a mystery not to be tinkered with, is another. Then to side with logic and evidence against any faith-based assertion is deemed sinful.

Isn’t it apparent that accusations of faithlessness are bludgeons no less harmful than the racks of the inquisition? After all, as I’ve said on multiple occasions in past blogs: Faith has far more to do with uncertainty than perfected knowledge. There is nothing inappropriate with accepting certain premises on faith—in fact, we must do so since logic takes us only so far—but we should also acknowledge the possibility of being wrong and be willing to change our views should evidence dictate the need. In short, we should from time to time, question our assumptions, because that will lead us to better places.

In this context, we must see certain Old Testament stories for what they are: morality tales meant for another time and place. Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac is a good case in point and a story I’ve written about in other blogs. But consider also the account of Job, in which God and Satan go into cahoots to tempt and test a good man. We are meant to take from the narrative the value of unquestioning faith and we’re encouraged to follow Job’s example by never questioning why. Mindless doing, it seems to imply, trumps understanding. Yet, should we also accept God’s apparently capricious behavior? I think it's best to question the account altogether.