The Church as a Tomb and Sepulcher for the Mormon God
No doubt most readers have, at one time or another, come across Nietzsche’s famous declaration that God is dead. By this, he did not intend any argument for atheism or sacrilege. On the contrary, he meant to expose the pre-existing albeit unacknowledged atheism and sacrilege that he found both around and within himself. The tendency that Nietzsche was trying diagnose was how people in his time no longer employed the concept of God within their lives. Even if people still professed to believe in Him – in some sense – the simple fact of the matter was that they never explained things in terms of Him, they never expected things from Him, He was no longer the foundation or ultimate justification for anything and, accordingly, they saw a world around them in which He was totally absent. This famous passage is always worth a read:
“Where has God gone?” he cried. “I shall tell you. We have killed him – you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God’s decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us – for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto.”
Here the madman fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling – it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars – and yet they have done it themselves.”
It has been further related that on that same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: “what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God?”
The people within Nietzsche’s society had replaced God with various mechanisms and ideologies, all of which contributed to the displacement and death of God. Evolution and not God was responsible for creation. Utility, equality and freedom became the foundations of righteousness instead of God. Activism and revolution became the source of affirmative change rather than prayer for divine intervention. The personal God of Christianity had been watered down into the totally impersonal god of deism. This was, Nietzsche claimed, how his audience had killed God.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Nietzsche’s accusation was that his audience could not understand it, let all own up to it. They went to church every Sunday and said their prayers over dinner. They most certainly still believed in God – in some lifeless sense of the word. At any rate, if God had in fact been killed, they most certainly did not intended it and thus could not be held responsible for it. By their lights, if anybody was at fault it was God Himself for no longer appearing to them on their newly chosen terms. Nietzsche fully acknowledges that this is how his audience genuinely felt, but this did not change the fact that they had all been complicit in the death of God. Whether they meant to or not, their choices to employ secular categories and intellectual strategies for coping with and navigating the world had almost totally displaced God from their lives. Because of the choices that these people freely made, vocabulary that they freely employed, the only God that continued to exist for them was nothing more than the lifeless remains of the God who once was.
I want to bring a very similar accusation against the bloggernacle. I want to suggest that far too many posts that we read within the ‘nacle have killed the God of Mormonism – the God who leads the Mormon Church through revelation. As far as the authors of these posts are concerned, the church is led by cultural influences and political pressures rather than God. They see a conservative allegiance to the status quo in the place of divine mandates given through prophets. They see activism and public protest rather than prophecy and personal prayer as the true source of change. They see adaptation in policy and doctrine (for the sake of institutional survival) rather than continuing revelation. They see contradictions between past and present teachings and policies rather than an ongoing and living relationship with the divine. They see a graduate degree as conferring more authority to speak Truth than an ordination. They see whitewash for discrimination and enslavement rather than a proclamation regarding divine natures and destinies. They see public relations rather than divine guidance.
I am not saying, any more than Nietzsche did, that these ways of looking at the church are intellectually bankrupt. Nor am I directly arguing for the incoherence of looking at the church in these ways. What I am arguing, following Nietzsche, is that these ways of choosing to see the church kill the divinity within it. They transform the church into nothing more than a memorial of how things used to be. They undermine activity within the church (as testimonies lose their foundation) and missionary work without (as the church becomes indistinguishable from the world around it).
Yes, these authors still believe and advocate a belief in the divinity of the Mormon Church, in some sense. They still praise and bear testimony of those teachings and leaders that square with their secular ideologies. I most certainly do not believe that they consciously intend to kill the divinity within the church. Not unlike Nietzsche’s audience, they think it is the church rather than they themselves that is to blame. Nevertheless, their feelings and intentions on these matters are totally irrelevant to the fact that they have been complicit in the death of the Mormon God. Whether they mean to or not, their choices to employ secular categories and intellectual strategies for coping with and navigating their lives within and without the church has almost totally displaced the living God that guides the Mormon Church. In Nietzsche’s words, the church has become little, if nothing more than a tomb and sepulcher for the lifeless remains of the Mormon God that once was.
Most embarrassing of all, I worry that my own attempts (this being one of them) to critique and undermine such tendencies by using the very same categories and strategies (by which others have displaced the Mormon God) itself serves to displace the Mormon God. By these lights, my posts become nothing more than the rantings of the madman who was no less complicit than those around him.
1. “Most embarrassing of all, I worry that my own attempts (this being one of them) to critique and undermine such tendencies by using the very same categories and strategies (by which others have displaced the Mormon God) itself serves to displace the Mormon God. By these lights, my posts become nothing more than the rantings of the madman who was no less complicit than those around him.”
Is this because the very fact that this “non-authorized” dialogue has a life of its own rather than being directed by God that you think it is killing him?
2. Nietzsche is dead. Long live Zizek.
Comment by Martin James — October 28, 2014 @ 1:45 pm
Good post. I haven’t read this passage before, but it will get me thinking.
As it goes along with the Mormon God, maybe you had certain blogs in mind–I don’t know. Most of the ‘naccle is indeed rife with musings of people who look beyond the mark and aim for comfort before truth. But my experience has also been that many on these blogs have often been successful at keeping the Mormon God alive, and stripping him of some of the culture, interpretation, policy, tradition that we have attributed to him. I think that overzealous orthodoxy and assumption can soften the Mormon God’s pulse as much as the liberal intellectual who picks and chooses what’s comfortable.
Like you though, I question my own part in this. In a lot of ways I’m not so different than my secular neighbors.
Comment by Pierce — October 28, 2014 @ 1:50 pm
This is why I have never been interested in “scripture mastery,” memorizing the discussions, or apologetics. It’s not that those things are bad, but that they seem to me to lend themselves to sapping us of the power of God.
Do you not think that the same potential comes in focusing on fulfilling callings, making it to meetings, immersing oneself in the sociality of the ward as much as it does from all the things you describe?
To me, much as in politics, the weaknesses of each side are the same. But it is very uncomfortable not to choose one or the other. You end up at home nowhere, neither feeling a true part of your home ward, nor with outlet online in which to bond with others.
At the same time, I don’t know that my path of choosing neither is the right one, either. Merely being uncomfortable doesn’t make it of God. Denying mortal power sometimes keeps us from using it to God’s purposes. And while I have times of unmistakable spiritual witness, I so rarely feel communion with others in the Spirit, how can I do else but question myself?
I think, perhaps, we are all left to simply recognize that we have biases that keep us from God, even if we don’t know what they are. That humility keeps the door open for change, when God sees fit to inflict it upon us.
Comment by SilverRain — October 28, 2014 @ 2:17 pm
Martin,
I think that might be a good way of putting it. I worry that in providing a critical analysis of intellectualism’s confrontation with the church, what I say sides with the church, but what I do sides with the intellectuals. This is the biggest reason for why I wish to isolate my audience to those who have already bought into intellectualism.
Pierce,
“stripping him of some of the culture, interpretation, policy, tradition that we have attributed to him.”
I know that that is what they believe and say that they are doing…. but that doesn’t change the fact that that very process is what is killing the Mormon God. This just is the process in which Nietzsche’s audience replaced God with nature, society, etc. But who were they and who are we to decide that this or that is NOT part of God?
I’m curious in what way do you think the conservatives also kill God?
Comment by Jeff G — October 28, 2014 @ 2:18 pm
Arguing against the enlightenment via the internet–God may be dead, but irony certainly isn’t…
Comment by Nate W. — October 28, 2014 @ 2:55 pm
“I’m curious in what way do you think the conservatives also kill God?”
By substituting real communities for the community of the pure in heart. They make idols of tradition and practices. By idolizing power.
Comment by Martin James — October 28, 2014 @ 3:18 pm
Nate W.
God maketh bandwidth for the evil and the just.
Comment by Martin James — October 28, 2014 @ 3:30 pm
Jeff,
It’s almost like saying that the Reformation killed the Catholic God. Not that I support the reformation movements we are seeing in Mormonism today, but a valid argument can be made that there are ideas, policies, traditions, etc. already in Mormonism that “kill” God for many people. This is worthy of investigation.
“I’m curious in what way do you think the conservatives also kill God?”
The Pharisees are, of course, the prime example of how this can happen to the pious conservative right. Some of our culture is Pharisaical when it relates to things like worthiness. On my mission, we weren’t allowed to baptize someone who smoked cigarettes or drank tea. Well where did Jesus ever say that?? Many people missed out on the benefits and strength that baptism and membership bring and became discouraged and disenfranchised because of it.
We’re seeing the ramifications of equating authority with revelation, and are course correcting in little ways (yeah, I know you disagree with me on this). Several years ago, a close relative of mine was dating a really awesome man after she had been divorced for a few years. Her kids loved him. He had been taking discussions and was ready to be baptized and get married to her, but he just couldn’t buy into the idea that Mary had sex with God. Being a convert herself, and that being an idea taught by some church authorities at the time, she didn’t question it. Eventually they parted ways because he wouldn’t be baptized, and she married someone similar to her first husband. Boo.
Conservative members might individually feel justified passing on the more extreme views of the relationship between PSR’s and revelation, but the inconsistencies can be damaging as a whole. The conservatives are generally unequipped and unwilling to help those who struggle in this way–telling them to pray and follow the prophet, since that is all they allow for themselves. It’s a safe barrier when you’re on the inside, but it’s still a barrier to those on the outside.
Many people have discouraged me from exploring the highest highs and lowest lows of the gospel and our doctrine, telling me that all I really need is taught by the Prophet and the other authorities. Like Martin said, I feel this is a form of idolatry.
Many conservative members might feel like they are living the Word of Wisdom by following the current model of avoiding the “don’ts” (which some were added outside of 89), while ignoring the larger message of moderation and judgment–thus missing out on the promised blessings in it to run and not be weary and receive great treasures of knowledge.
Many women feel marginalized by superfluous conservative policies in the church (don’t care to explain, just sayin’).
There’s a lot more, but you get the idea, and I’m sure you’ve read all sorts of stuff like this. I despise the extremes on both sides. But both sides can kill the Mormon God.
Comment by Pierce — October 28, 2014 @ 5:07 pm
tl;dr Pharisees were the pious conservatives, worthiness is measured in Pharisaical ways today, we’re re-evaluating revelation, the right can fall into small forms of idolatry, passing on antiquated ideas can be damning.
Comment by Pierce — October 28, 2014 @ 5:11 pm
SR,
I think we might be talking about two different things. The death of God that I speak of is not the transformation of the spirit into routine. Rather, it is the total displacement of God in the way that we see and engage the world. Thus, while scripture mastery and being anxiously engaged in church activities might be tedious and less than ideal, I don’t think it qualifies as killing the concept of God. I would suggest that it domesticates the concept, which might itself be the primary danger that lies on the conservative side.
Nate, the final paragraph in the post beat you to the punch.
Martin, I don’t think you are describing ways in which God is killed either. For starters, I don’t any reason to suggest that conservatives are uniquely inclined to create “real communities” whatever those are. Since God plays a greater role in traditional ways of engaging the world, I would suggest that revive rather than kill God. Finally, inasmuch as authority is supposed to be God’s authority, then a worship of it (whatever that means) could hardly be seen as killing God. Like SR, I think you are confusing killing God with domesticating Him. (I don’t see why conservatives would be more – or less – inclined to domesticate God either.)
Comment by Jeff G — October 28, 2014 @ 5:52 pm
Pierce,
I think that you too are confusing killing and domesticating God. I don’t see any policies being instituted by the church that actually kill God, even if we might think that they domesticate Him. Straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel definitely perverts ones religion, but it does not kill God.
Comment by Jeff G — October 28, 2014 @ 5:56 pm
Jeff G.:
I’m not sure that it did. My point is that modernity and the Enlightenment are the background radiation of our lives, and that is what killed God. The very fact of the scientific and technological advances means that the pre-modern view of God as a transcendent wizard and miracle worker is no longer tenable. One can either accept that the transcendent God is dead and search for the immanent God, or one can carry on with a premodern theology that is belied by the very existence of the tools used to convey that theological point of view.
Comment by Nate W. — October 28, 2014 @ 7:26 pm
I suppose I don’t see a significant difference. One replaces God with intellect, the other with routine.
A domesticated God is not a God.
Comment by SilverRain — October 28, 2014 @ 7:56 pm
I think I see what you see. I am glad you are articulating all of this.
Comment by Eric Nielson — October 28, 2014 @ 8:31 pm
Jeff,
Here is what I mean. Only God can make us do the absurd and love our enemies. Nothing the conservatives advocate or want relies on God.
Love of family, love of community, love of order. None of these require God. Love of enemies, now that requires a God.
Comment by Martin James — October 28, 2014 @ 9:05 pm
Nate W,
What is the most powerful being that is scientifically imaginable?
What does consciousness mean for artificial intelligence.
I don’t think you can say science has slammed the door on God until you answer those questions scientifically.
I would say that almost everyone believes they are a god in that they believe they make choices that are not predetermined. Almost no one can pull off not believing in choice.
Nietzsche was completely wrong, we are flooded with Gods. It’s like zombie time for Gods.
Comment by Martin James — October 28, 2014 @ 9:15 pm
AgRain,
A domesticated god is not god, but a domestic goddess is a joy forever.
Comment by Martin James — October 28, 2014 @ 9:21 pm
SilverRain,
I agree with your #13. It seems that the same rebuttals can be made for the other side.
Comment by Pierce — October 28, 2014 @ 9:49 pm
Nate,
It may seem an overstatement to say that one choice makes a God and from a theological point if view that is true, but from a scientific point of view, if one’s choice is not explained by science and I’m arguing that no one really believes that it is, the each of us that believes in choice believes we are doing the scientifically impossible, and using logic, if one can do one impossible thing, then one can do anything!
Whatever is the cause of religious changes, it was not caused by science showing God to be impossible.
Take 100 atheists at random and test their scientific knowledge scientifically. They know next to nothing scientifically. Even professional scientists are at sea outside their field.
It is conservative power seekers that have killed the Old god by trying to use god to accomplish religious and political ends. Look at the surveys. People haven’t moved away from god because they love science. They have moved away from God because they hate preachers.
This is why Jeff’s seeing god in gods preachers disturbs me so much. For every one he saves be causing them to equate gods words with the word of Gods mouthpiece, he loses many more to preacher hate.
Comment by Martin James — October 28, 2014 @ 9:52 pm
SR,
“A domesticated God is not a God.”
Okay, but a dead God in not a God either. Remember, we are talking about people conception of God, not God Himself and surely we can acknowledge a difference between domestication and extermination, enslavement and deicide.
I’m not saying that the things you bring up aren’t bad. It might even be the case that they too contribute to the death of God. But I don’t think this equivalence is as straightforward as you imply.
Comment by Jeff G — October 29, 2014 @ 1:07 am
Martin, domestic goddesses aren’t exactly hot commodities among LDS midsingles, so I have my doubts. ;)
Jeff, I perceive domesticating God to just be another way of killing Him. The end result is the same: a removal of the need for humility and faith. You no longer need to think much about a God whose rules are easily quantifiable. The only difference, and one I don’t find appreciable, is lip service. Dogmatic liberal thought is a wolf amongst the sheep, and dogmatic conservative thought is the same thing wearing a sheepskin.
If we are to be wise, we must learn to recognize the pitfalls of both to ensure we are listening to the Shepherd and the sheepdogs who truly follow Him.
Comment by SilverRain — October 29, 2014 @ 4:34 am
For the rest, at the risk of pushing my analogy too far, I fully agree with Jeff. When we have gained a testimony that the “sheepdogs” are called of Him, we can make our default to listen. We don’t have to constantly nitpick. Gaining such a testimony is vital to membership. It would be refreshing if those without a testimony of the prophets, seers, and revelators owned up to their lack of testimony rather than pretending like they have one all while laying in wait for the merest hint of a mistake.
So lame.
Comment by SilverRain — October 29, 2014 @ 4:40 am
AgRain,
Well said on both accounts. It makes no sense to nitpick or disagree with a prophet. I think you will find that my nitpicking is with words about prophets, not with prophet’s words.
Comment by Martin James — October 29, 2014 @ 6:30 am
SR,
Your argument very closely parallels that of Kierkegaard who lived in the same time as Nietzsche. His criticism was that so called Christians had domesticated God by making everything that He did “rational” or “ethical”, or as we might call it, intellectually defensible. He thought that this was the very opposite of faith.
I think that the two lines of criticism are closely related, but I don’t think we ought to run them together.
Comment by Jeff G — October 29, 2014 @ 10:42 am
Martin:
I think you nisunderstood me, which I can’t blame you for doing—we’re talking about Nietszche after all….
My point really has nothing to do with atheism, and everything to do with our understanding of what type of being God is. Because rationalism and empiricism have obviated the need for the hand of God in explaining physical phenomena, to believe in an active interventionist God requires one to theorize about how God hides his handiwork. There are solid explanations, but by having to go through that process changes our understanding of God. Now, instead of a God that rules by almighty fiat (literally, Let there be,) we understand God to work in accordance with physical laws, possibly laid out from the Beginning. If he intervenes in this world in a temporal sense, it is by small and unnoticeable means such as inspiring beings with will.
This change in our understanding of God’s interaction with our world cannot help but affect our understanding of his nature. If God could actively intervene in great display and majesty, but chooses instead to hide his fingerprints behind human acts and physical laws, then God is not likely to be the capricious and angry God of the Old Testament that demands our worship of Him by sacrifice, obedience and genuflection. Rather, we worship God though loving our neighbors as ourselves, for they are the manifestation and presence of God in this world.
Comment by Nate W. — October 29, 2014 @ 11:01 am
Nate,
I definitely get that that’s what you are getting at. What I object to, however, is how you externalize these phenomena and influences as if they did not describe patterns in our own behavior. To be sure, none of us will ever reverse or undermine modernity on our own, but that does not make it okay for us to go along with it.
Tenable to who? Again, you have externalized all standards and responsibility thereby making it appear as if we have no choice in the matter. You seem to be saying that certain views just ARE untenable regardless of values that any person embraces. I find this view totally to be totally dogmatic and unreflexive. Just to be clear, I am not calling you dogmatic, since I think modernity and Enlightenment both go to great length to repress the reflexivity that both Nietzsche and I are calling for.
Comment by Jeff G — October 30, 2014 @ 12:59 pm
Martin,
So what? Just because it doesn’t require a God doesn’t mean that doing these things is not following God and, more importantly, that doing these things doesn’t serve as a catalyst do God’s intervention in our lives.
Again, I’m not necessarily saying that routine is the best thing in the world. Rather, I am saying that to accuse conservatives insistence on following the Lord’s duly ordained servants precludes God’s involvement in our lives is more than a little absurd.
“Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” Nobody, and I’ve made this point before, is saying that every word out of a prophets mouth is that of the Lord. However, if we are to get the word of the Lord in a non-private way then there is no access other than the prophets. The existence of false prophets does nothing to change this.
Comment by Jeff G — October 30, 2014 @ 1:07 pm
I would clarify my initial statement by saying that the liberal extremes are ultimately more damaging than the conservative ones, when it comes to the church as a whole. So I’m with you on that. But conservative damages do exist, which I didn’t see addressed in the post. They might not be loudly promoted on blogs, but might very well be in a Relief Society or Gospel doctrine class.
“Tenable to who?”
Don’t you feel that a balance can and ultimately will be made at some point, even if your tipping point might be more conservative than others?
Comment by Pierce — October 31, 2014 @ 8:14 am
So Jeff, I’m at sacrament meeting last week and the theme is following the prophets and the the first speaker gave an extensive recap of Pres. Benson’s 14 points talk. So far, so good for authority.
Then the next speak quoted the current prophet who said, what I want you to do is be a little kinder and be a little better.
My point is that too much time spent on talking about the fact that we should follow the prophets and not enough spent on how to be a little kinder is not following the prophets.
Conservatives talk the talk about authority but to use you word, they tend to be tendentious about walking the walk of the prophets words.
Comment by Martin James — October 31, 2014 @ 8:39 am
Pierce,
I’m not so sure that the critique I bring is intrinsically one of liberal vs conservatives. I think it’s more a critique of modern intellectualism, which isn’t necessarily liberal.
Martin,
I’m more than a little lost as to how your story amounts to any kind of criticism of my position.
Comment by Jeff G — October 31, 2014 @ 1:45 pm
Your position is that we should follow authority.
I’m making the empirical claim that those that say we should follow authority are unreliable about following authority so the conclusions they draw about what it means to follow authority are off.
Again, not wrong just pointless.
Comment by Martin James — October 31, 2014 @ 2:39 pm
Let me ask you this: do you believe that scientific observation can detect an act of God and identify it as such? If not, why not?
As you are advocating obedience to authority, which Nietszche derided as slave morality, I think it’s pretty safe to say that Nietszche was not calling for the same thing that you are.
Comment by Nate W. — October 31, 2014 @ 3:17 pm
Nate,
Actually, this post never mentions authority at all. I will, however, concede that Nietzsche and I are both making the same argument but for very different reasons.
Can science detect an act of God? Yes. Can it identify it as such? As science is currently practiced, no. The categories of God and divinity are totally ruled out be science…. which is exactly how it is killing God.
Martin,
What are you talking about? Why do I have to obey a rule perfectly in order to teach that we ought to follow it? Isn’t this like saying that nobody can coach or even understand pro football who was (is?) not himself a pro-football player? Again, I am lost as to what you’re trying to say.
Comment by Jeff G — October 31, 2014 @ 5:29 pm
“Let me ask you this: do you believe that scientific observation can detect an act of God and identify it as such? If not, why not?”
As Jeff has already said, scientific observation cannot ‘identify’ an act of God, as doing so would violate Methodological Naturalism, which is (rightly or wrongly) a base assumption of Modern Science. The most absurd manifestation of this is in two prominent threads of ‘atheism-from-science’ discourse:
1) Using ‘Random’ as if it explains everything.
2) Claiming that science proves that our very consciousness is deterministic, which is a truly remarkable feat seeing that if it were true, it would invalidate *all* reasoning, including science!
Back to the OP though, I recognised this effect in me about a year ago. I realised that the warning in the BOM about ‘Are miracles ceased? Watch out because it means you don’t have faith’ applied to me because whenever someone else spoke of a miraculous experience, my first reaction was to seek to explain it away. There’s an element of pride in this as I want to appear ‘unlike a religious nutcase’ to the world. The consequence is that I’ve been missing the Lord working in my life.
Comment by Fraggle — November 1, 2014 @ 3:50 am
Fraggle,
There are several different flavors of what people believe to be the scientific method. There is the schoolbook version including things like methodological naturalism and then there are the people who think science is finding out anything you can anyway you can. I prefer the second definition.
Think about the people trying to figure out consciousness and artificial intelligence. These are only barely science right now, but they are clearly active areas of research.
When someone like Elon Musk can only describe artificial intelligence by comparing it to “summoning the demon” we know we’ve come full circle.
I’m of the opinion that “what would Jesus do?” In relation to science and technology is a very meaningful question and that those among who say it’s beside the point are not open to all the avenues the spirit is using to guide us.
It can be both. I think miracle is a human term not a godly one,
Comment by Martin James — November 1, 2014 @ 9:06 am
Fraggle,
That’s a great way of putting it.
“whenever someone else spoke of a miraculous experience, my first reaction was to seek to explain it away. There’s an element of pride in this as I want to appear ‘unlike a religious nutcase’ to the world. The consequence is that I’ve been missing the Lord working in my life.”
That’s the perfect summary.
As soon as references to the supernatural are allowed to pass the peer-review process, then I’ll accept that science is about finding things out in whatever way possible.
Comment by Jeff G — November 1, 2014 @ 9:39 am
Jeff,
But when did god ever claim he was supernatural?
Comment by Martin James — November 1, 2014 @ 12:42 pm
Supernaturalism just is that pheonemena that is not publicly available for scrutiny. God’s existence and His private communications with individual people just are the epitome of the supernatural. Supernaturalism is also the absence of mechanisms. God’s interactions with the world are the epitome of the absence of mechanism.
Maybe you could show me where, any where at all, that a scientist in good repute explains any phenomena with an appeal to God in the peer reviewed literature. Any where at all. The burden of proof is on you.
If it makes you feel better, I’ll accept your version of science once it starts allowing references to God’s interactions with the world through the peer review process.
Comment by Jeff G — November 1, 2014 @ 1:41 pm
I’m going to contest the claim that God’s interactions with the world happen without mechanism. The Book of Mormon itself directly contradicts this picture of God’s interference in at least one case, while the Biblical narrative, particularly in Isaiah, does so regularly.
In addition, Brigham Young taught:
Yet I will say with regard to miracles, there is no such thing save to the ignorant — that is, there never was a result wrought out by God or by any of His creatures without there being a cause for it. There may be results, the causes of which we do not see or understand, and what we call miracles are no more than this — they are the results or effects of causes hidden from our understandings. [Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 13, pg. 140-p.141
James E. Talmage on the subject:
Miracles are commonly regarded as occurrences in opposition to the laws of nature. Such a conception is plainly erroneous, for the laws of nature are inviolable. However, as human understanding of these laws is at best but imperfect, events strictly in accordance with natural law may appear contrary thereto. The entire constitution of nature is founded on system and order. [James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith, 1966, p. 220]
My assertion is going to be that *all* things have a mechanism. *All* things are natural. The “supernatural” only exists as an illusion. God himself is natural, and His interactions with the world are natural. When they appear supernatural, that is only because we have not yet progressed in knowledge to the point of being able to understand the natural mechanisms He is using to produce the desired result.
Comment by Samuel — November 1, 2014 @ 4:07 pm
Credit for the quotes goes to this blog post at Wheat and Tares:
http://www.wheatandtares.org/2592/miracles-and-natural-law/
Comment by Samuel — November 1, 2014 @ 4:08 pm
Yeah, I know all of that. The whole point is that this does absolutely nothing to bring God within science as we know it. Sure, maybe there will some day, some where be something akin to science that recognizes God. But that something simply does not exist today.
After all, there is a huge incentive for somebody to bring God into the discussion of science, and yet it has not been done. Why is that? The idea that there is some strict determinant or criterion for what does and does not count as science has been a pointless quest. The fact of the matter is that science is what is currently practiced by scientists and none of them mention God within their peer reviewed literature. None.
This is more than somewhat related to the fact that natural philosophy (science) was invented for the very purpose of driving the divine from our ways of conceptualizing the world. The absence of God within science is not an unfortunately accident of any kind, but was the whole point for which science was created.
I am not trying to say that the same person cannot have a faith in God and science at the same time, but this is not what the question was. What I am rejecting is the idea that the “book of nature” and the secular concepts that we invented to read that book can or ever will reveal the very personal God that it was designed to replace.
Comment by Jeff G — November 1, 2014 @ 4:19 pm
Jeff, I only have anecdotal data, but in the book of nature, including the secular concepts developed in order to read it, I have found God revealed. So have several of my professors, even at secular universities.
I shall log my vehement disagreement with the assertion that science was invented for the purpose of driving God out of our vision of the world. It may have had that effect, but that was not its original goal.
As far as the literature goes, what do you expect? God is not an empirically testable proposition. If two people cannot independently access the exact same data set, then the validity of using the scientific method on the set is at least called into question. God must be revealed or forever remain unknown, and such revelation is personal, individual, and in many ways the exact opposite of empirical.
Comment by Samuel — November 1, 2014 @ 4:55 pm
Jeff,
You are trying to change the subject to science. You made some claims about what supernaturalism is. I don’t think any of what you said about the supernatural is from god and I don’t think it comes from science.
Whose tradition of what the supernatural is are you using?
Comment by Martin James — November 1, 2014 @ 7:16 pm
Samuel,
I agree 100% with your last paragraph. That was point I was trying to make to Nate and then Martin.
With regards to the intended relation between natural philosophy (remember, we are talking about the creation of science), I would again insist that its explicit purpose was to replace the personal God that operated according to will (voluntas) rather than law (ratio). This is exactly why deism became so popular among those that would make up the Royal Society.
This was especially apparent in the effort at bringing science to the general population, which is exactly how the practice and population associated with it came into power in Western Society. In England, this confrontation between a personal God and science wasn’t all that explicit – although it most definitely was still there. On the continent, however, the clash could not have been more overt. The entire purpose behind the French Philosophes and the encyclopedists was the complete over throw of divine power as it operated in people’s lives. Galileo was an earlier example of the duplicitous ways in which scholars could undermine faith in a personal God while at the same time pretending to preach an unstable kind of compatibilism.
Martin,
Nate asked me about science, I answered and then you jumped in on the topic of science. With regards to supernaturalism, you’re the one who seems to have firm (and unorthodox) opinions on the subject, perhaps you can define it. After all, I still think debate on what that word means it utterly futile.
If you really want to establish that God can be brought under science, you will show me where it has been done. I am still waiting for you to provide one example of God actually being used to explain anything with peer reviewed literature. I’m guessing, however, that you’ll continue to quietly ignore this request.
Of course God can be brought under some hypothetical science that does not and never has existed. You can say that about anything as long as you’re willing to “idealize” it enough. Just show me where it actually has been done. After all, there is a whole lot of money and fame waiting for any person that can bring God under the umbrella of science and yet it hasn’t been done. Why not?
Comment by Jeff G — November 2, 2014 @ 3:58 pm
Jeff,
My position is not that God is useful for science it is that science is an aspect of God. So all science is compatible with God.
The reason that God is not used in science is that we don’t have an accepted measurement of God.
My position is that we don’t use God in religion either because we don’t have a common definition of God, so there is really not that much difference between how God is discussed in science and in religion.
I don’t think it is that unorthodox to say that science is radically incomplete because it does not explain itself. The scientific method has not been proved scientifically.
Comment by Martin James — November 2, 2014 @ 8:43 pm
“After all, I still think debate on what that word means it utterly futile.”
The more words that are added to that list, the happier I will be.
Comment by Martin James — November 2, 2014 @ 8:45 pm
Martin,
I think everybody agrees with something similar to this, but you phrase it so whimsically that it’s hard to tell exactly what you mean. I believe that God knows all of our science, but that isn’t all that strong of a claim. Furthermore, I don’t see what that would have to do with what science says for or against God.
Of course there is a difference. For starters, religion never even brings up how we “measure”, publicly detect or otherwise logically analyze God. God is not data, He is not merely an explanans nor is He the some kind of celestial super-scholar. Intellectuals, and scientists in particular, have a very unfortunately tendency to make God in their own image, as if all of His power and wisdom just are a more fully developed version of what they are doing. Poppycock. All of my posts have got into great detail about how God means very different things from an intellectual/scientific perspective so to simply assert that religion and science treat God the same way doesn’t go very far.
That looks like the exact claim that I made a few comments ago, so I have no clue what you mean by it. Your problem is not that you accept a fully developed science. Your problem is that you think that God absolutely must, in some sense, be analyzable by the rules of science or else faith, rather than science, is in trouble. Why would you ever think that science has earned the right to make claims like that? Not only has science not detected or explained things in terms of God, but has instead gone to great lengths to make sure that no scientific explanation makes reference of any kind to God. Getting back to the OP, this just is the ways in which we have killed God.
Yes, but your version of doing this is sloppy, irresponsible and suspiciously convenient. I was simply saying that we cannot, nor should we ever set down a set of definite, necessary and sufficient conditions for what does and does not count as science. This is a fools errand. This is not, however, to throw up our hands and simply declare that there is no answer to this question and say that anything goes. Rather, it is to say that if we want to define science, we simply look at what scientists are actually doing and publishing. It is a rejection of a priori rationalism in favor of a posteriori empiricism. The answer to the question, then, is that scientists publish nothing having to do with God and actively ensure that nothing that they do appeals to or has anything to do with God. Thus, God is not a part of science, as a matter of empirical fact.
Comment by Jeff G — November 3, 2014 @ 4:15 pm
What do you mean when you say God is a “he”?
If that is not measurable or publicly detectable, then what kind of word is it?
How am I to understand your claim that God is not data, if not in a measurable or publicly debatable way?
You are the one that is attempting to categorize “authority regimes” and have something of a trichotomy into ancient, feudal and modern and trying to say that science is killing God by ignoring God talk.
You say I’m being sloppy and irresponsible. So, then just explain to me how I’m supposed to understand whether or not you are making God in your own image or not? How do we decide if your claim that God is not data is poppycock? After all, I am that I am sounds a lot like data to me.
Usually your response to these questions of mine is that they are beside the point. So, if it is beside the point in what sense God is a he, then it shouldn’t be that hard to stop saying God is a He. If it is important that he is a he, then it seems extremely fair to ask in what senses he is a he.
If we followed that we could proceed through the dictionary of senses and strike out words that are not at point for God discussions (say electron or compact disc) and for words that are relevant (say irresponsible) you could offer up some explanation of what process we use to determine the meaning of the word “responsible”.
This should be pretty easy for you because you have a clear idea of what it means to be feudal.
You seem to think it is easy to tell when one is being “God Killing” and when one is being “God fearing”. That we can easily separate the parts of our speech and reason that infected by science or modernism and the parts that are not. I think it is next to impossible to separate them.
Take raise your hand to the square or the all-seeing eye. “squareness” and “eye” are thoroughly rational and empirical in a way that we can’t separate our modern usage from our feudal usage.
I’m just completely at a loss for how to be a feudal language speaker. You say, that’s your science speaking. Well, I’m willing to through science out, but if we are still to speak, we need a way of coming to an understanding to terms.
What do you mean by a feudal rationality? How does one define a square feudally that is different from modernly?
Comment by Martin James — November 4, 2014 @ 12:36 pm
“Rather, it is to say that if we want to define science, we simply look at what scientists are actually doing and publishing.”
You know full well that this is completely circular.
The definition of scientist is contested. Are Christian Scientists scientists?
How about people publishing in intelligent design journals? Some of them claim they are the only ones being scientists, that they are the “real” scientists.
The contestedness shows up in adjectives being added like “reputable” or “at leading institutions” or “mainstream”.
But take alcoholics anonymous. Is that a scientific program? Its all very contested and you are cherry-picking you examples of what a paradigmatic example of science is as much as I am cherry-licking what is paradigmatically religious belief is (say the literal gathering of israel, for example).
Comment by Martin James — November 4, 2014 @ 12:49 pm