5.21.2007

Sophisticated theology (phrase I heard at Internet Infidels)

History is full of sophisticated theologians who came to wildly disparate conclusions about the nature of God. Which of these sophisticated people should the unsophisticated person trust? They all sound terribly serious and sophisticated. John Wesley sounds every bit as sophisticated as John Calvin. And I'm sure if I looked into the work of Islamic theologians I would see much of the very same sophistication. Is Christian theology more sophisticated than say, Islamic theology or Jewish theology? How is a numbnuts like me supposed to tell the difference, when all of these sophisticated people sound so damned serious and sophisticated? From what I've been led to understand, the Bible should be sufficient for me, and I shouldn't need theology. But the problem is, the Bible is not sufficient. In fact, the Bible is miserably insufficient. For me. So I'm left with a choice, or what seems like a choice: make a leap of faith, or remain in doubt. I tried the leap of faith and couldn't do it, so I'm stuck with doubt.

I can see that the theist's answer to this might be something like: Well, look at science. Here we have all kinds of smart and sophisticated people coming to different conclusions about a great number of things, so how come we can live with that when it happens to scientists but have a problem when it occurs among theologians? But here's where the theist seems to forget that God is posited as a perfect being, not only a perfect being unto Itself but one with enormous power, and influence. Scientists are simply human beings who study the world around them, unaided by anything divine or supernatural, let alone perfect. They make no claims to perfection and they make mistakes, and these mistakes come as no great shock if we assume that scientists are not guided by the hand of Providence. Scientists coming to wildly different conclusions about various things doesn't present much of a problem. But theologians are laboring under the assumption that a perfect and extremely powerful being is shedding light on their studies, assisting them in discovering truths and spelling them out, guiding them in their work. Are there any current theologians (sophisticated ones, of course) who don't actually believe that this is the case?

As an objective observer, shouldn't it concern me that history is full of sophisticated theologians who presumably worked under the beneficent and guiding hand of the God they were defending and yet came to vastly different conclusions about the nature of this God? Are there many gods? Maybe there are. But if there is One True God, then a great many of these sophisticated theologians were laboring under a delusion, or were deceived, or were simply not sophisticated enough to do their God justice; and since I'm not all that sophisticated myself, I can't determine which of these fine people were wrong and which ones were right. One thing is certain: all of these well-known, ultra-credited theologians were smarter than I am, but some of them (if not all of them) were dead wrong.

Since my eternal soul is at stake here, this is unsettling to say the least. Does my salvation depend on being smart enough to read the works of every major theologian and determining which of them are correct? If it does, I'm doomed. And, since I'm not smart enough to ensure my salvation with my brains, then I have to make a leap of faith. But I can't do it. I've tried. I've tried like crazy. Preachers, pastors, and "witnesses" of every stripe have a thousand different versions of the God's-honest-truth, evangelists and priests are always landing themselves in jail, and the Bible is unconvincing, to be kind about it. I was thinking the other day about the good book, as I always am. I had to wonder about the flood and original sin. I can't understand why God would wipe everybody out except for a few good eggs, when he knew those good eggs would pass on the bad stuff anyway and start the whole stinky ball of sin rolling all over again. Did the world get any better after this cleansing? No. Sorry, I don't buy it. It's nonsense. I also know that clever people can take any type of nonsense and make it seem plausible, and in a thousand different ways.

I'll keep on thinking about God and talking to Her like always. Anything can happen. I'll continue reading and searching. Maybe someday I'll have an honest to goodness revelation and wind up on a sidewalk somewhere handing out flyers with a big smile on my face. Who knows.
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