This blog post is inspired primarily by Grace in my previous post. I have made the claim that leaving the faith gave me a better understanding of Scripture, and it seems like a good idea to demonstrate how I think this is the case. So, I think I’m going to try a casual, laymans type explanation of my own evolution of understanding of the Bible. I might even turn this into its own blog.
Please note that in the following section I am, for the sake of being consistent, treating the Book of Mormon, the Koran, and every canon of Scripture under the same critique. So if you are getting frustrated that it seems like I am assuming your chosen text is guilty from the start, just imagine I am talking about the “other” text that you assume is guilty before proving that it is. If you are a Protestant Christian, imagine I am talking about the Book of Mormon. If you are a Muslim, imagine I am talking about the Bible. You get my point. Any of you can use the following to discredit the “other” guy.
Anybody Can Make Contradictions Disappear!
There is this myth in some hermeneutics that if you are doing hermeneutics properly, you will never encounter a contradiction in God’s Word. Unfortunately, by employing this principle, if “God’s Word” did actually contain errors, people would never know. Why? Quite simply, because hermeneutical principles can be adapted to achieve the result you want. In short, you are told that if you encounter a contradiction, the problem lies in your hermeneutic and not in the text. The text is always excused from being at fault, a priori. Theologians then simply massage their hermeneutical rules so that all contradictions are explained away, or at least ignorable. They intentionally create hermeneutical practices or principles that resolve contradictions. This is dishonest, because it assumes the result it is trying to prove: that God’s Word is inerrant.
One good example of this is the fundamentalist Christian hermeneutical concept of “the easier to understand verse takes precedence over the difficult to understand.” There is a massive hole with this principle. Which Christian gets to determine which verse is easier to understand? What ends up happening is that two Christians take opposite stances on an issue, claiming that their pet verse is easiest to understand and therefore the other verse is being “misunderstood”. Why not just make things easy, resolve the conflict, and admit there is a contradiction? Because they cannot admit that. Why? Because a theological concept takes precedence over their understanding of Scripture. They believe that God cannot lie and that the Bible they have before them is the Word of God. Therefore, it cannot contain any contradictions. Therefore, they are first informed by a theological concept and then by the text of Scripture. So if there ever was a contradiction, they would never see it.
There is a classic contradiction between the accounts of Matthew and Luke about the birth of Christ. I was having a debate with a graduate of Moody Bible Institute about this contradiction. What astonished me was how this person would grasp at any straw – no matter how improbable – to resolve the conflict. In other words, by the time our debate was done, this person was basically saying “well, it could have happened this way, therefore it did happen this way, because that is the only way the contradiction can be resolved.” Somehow, this meant I was wrong, despite the fact there were dozens of alternate explanations of the two texts that were much more probable. (Keep in mind that in the mind of a fundamentalist, it is less probable that the Bible would contain a contradiction than that men would make a mistake.) Basically, as long as he could invent or imagine a possible resolution between the two passages, that meant the skeptic was wrong. Yes, I said “invent” or “imagine”.
As you can imagine, my little mind was suddenly faced with the irony of this mentality. This mentality could be used to defend anything a person wanted to. If you wanted to defend Islam or Mormonism or any other religion, you could employ this same tactic. If you start with the assumption that the Book of Mormon is God’s Word and that God cannot lie and that therefore the Book of Mormon does not contain any contradictions, you will do the exact same thing to defend the Book of Mormon that this person did to defend the Bible. And having done some study of Mormon apologetics, this is exactly the case.
Let me give an example. One of the critiques of the Book of Mormon has been that it cannot be the Word of God because the Bible ends with an admonition to not add any words to “this book”. Therefore, the canon is “closed”. [Nevermind that this entire argument is bunk on so many levels that it would take a book to explain them.] Well, the Mormon apologist is going to intentionally seek to defend the Book of Mormon. This means that he is going to discredit this attack. Honestly, it is super easy to do so. And they do. They turn to the Old Testament and point out that when Moses wrote the Law he also said that nobody was to add to this law. But, since people did, it must be okay under special circumstances. Therefore, even though Revelation says not to add to the words of “this book”, it was okay in the case of the Book of Mormon. Contradiction solved! Obviously the details of the argument are much more “refined”, but you have to remember that anybody can refine a bad argument and make it “intellectual”. Perhaps the very question itself (is there a contradiction in the Book of Mormon?) is flawed, because it assumes a contradiction is possible. But a contradiction is impossible when the definition of contradiction can change.
Does this mentality sounds familiar? I think if there is anything we can learn from lawyers, it is that if you are really good and really smart you can make a guilty man appear innocent and do it with straight face. After all, the lawyer’s personal success is dependent upon their ability to defend that guilty man and make him look innocent.
The irony, of course, is that the theologians success is dependent upon his ability to make his chosen text as the Word of God appear non-contradictory. So, they do. Every one of them does this without exception. I used to do it.
I Want the Right Answer, not an Answer that Reinforces my Faith
It seems to be a principle among theologians (Muslim, Christian, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.) that it is more important to find an answer that resolves a contradiction than it is to find the right answer. The amusing part is that for them finding an answer that resolves the contradiction is equal to finding the right answer. The only problem is that they place limits upon themselves in finding the answer. They assume that certain things are true and questioning them is called “heresy”. Therefore, the resolution must never contradict A (e.g. God is three in one or God is one). So if the easiest answer is to say that A is wrong, then that must be the wrong answer. So, they keep looking. And looking. And looking. And all this looking is called searching after the mind of God and they, in spiritual tones, tout that the joy is in the searching. Somehow, the inability to find an answer is then pronounced as evidence that God is greater than us and mysterious and His ways are “higher” than ours and we may never understand. Isn’t God great?
Look at church history. The first three to four hundred years were filled with debate after debate among local congregations, elders, leaders, and everyone of every stripe trying to resolve the contradictions. People were put to death. Churches had a slew of books as their reference point – many of which would later be pronounced non-canonical (they didn’t know that at the time!). Heresies and confusion abounded. You have to remember, too, that heresy goes both ways. It is not like one group was calling another a heretic and the other was just sitting idly by. No, they were calling the first group heretics too! Any given group was not allowed to propose certain answers to questions. After all of this fighting, and as time went on, the generally accepted conception of God got tighter and tighter and therefore the number of items considered heresy grew larger. As contradictions and conflicts were resolved, theologian’s understanding of God grew. Or did it? How would we know the difference between an answer and the right answer? After all, just resolving a contradiction does not mean, in any way, that you have found the right answer. It might simply mean we are incapable of admitting the source of the contradiction is flawed.
I noticed this happening when I was at Bible school, and it blew me away. I remember going to teachers, pastors, elders, my dad, and others and asking deep questions. It was always so weird. I remember thinking “these people are trying to give me an answer that resolves my doubt.” I congratulate their intentions, but that is not what I was looking for. I was not looking for my faith to be reinforced, I was looking for the right answers. I knew, intuitively, that the right answer was not necessarily the one that would take my doubt away. So it always weirded me out when I would ask a question and the answer given had nothing to do with the question I was asking. For example, I once said I was having doubts about the literalness of the Creation narrative. The man in front of me then hands me a book by a scholar who doesn’t believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis. Things like this happened all the time! The people I would ask questions of would often grasp at any concepts, theological statements, Bible verses, prayer time, etc. in an attempt to resolve my doubt. It was as if the answer given was not as important as finding an answer that would make my doubt go away. This bothered me greatly.
Did anybody care about finding the right answers, even if it meant their current faith was wrong? Why did nobody have the balls to do this? I didn’t care which interpretation of Genesis 1-2 would resolve my doubts, I wanted to find the right interpretation. The irony was that every Christian I talked to had a slightly different take on it. Even more ironic, their “take” on the passage was generally described as the “interpretation that resolved my own doubts”. In other words, every Christian was basically finding interpretations that worked for them. If it resolved doubt, it was the right answer for them. Did no one care about the right answer? I mean, what is the point of God communicating Genesis 1-2 at all if He wasn’t trying to say something specific?
So we see yet another problem with this entire concept of looking for an answer that resolves the contradiction. What if two theologians resolve the conflict with different answers? This does happen. All. The. Time.
Take for example the number of angels at the tomb, or… say… whether the stone was rolled away when the women came to the tomb or before. Or how about the contradiction between the gospels and Acts on how Judas Iscariot died. Consider the theologians dilemma on these issues. The theologian knows that the Bible does not have any contradictions, but here is an “apparent” contradiction between the passages. So, the theologian sets out to study the passages more. The theologian believes that once he has found a resolution to the contradiction, he has probably found the right answer. After all, his goal is to resolve the contradiction. Just like a lawyer trying to figure out how the evidence only “appears” to make his client look guilty. But theologians come up with different answers to resolve the above conflicts all the time.
For me, I didn’t care if someone resolved the conflict, I wanted to know the right answer. And if I did not know the right answer, I thought it was dishonest to propose an answer simply because it boosted peoples faith. I have heard, specifically, of apologists giving what they know to be a lying answer simply because it comforts the flock. They consider boosting the faith more important than giving a truthful answer.
So take the stories about how Judas Iscariot died. I read through all the answers I could find given by theologians and scholars. Many of these answers contradicted each other on details. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that when solving a problem the details matter. So when the answers given by theologians contradict each other, I started to smell something fishy. Sure, all the theologians agreed that there was no contradiction and that their answer demonstrated that this was the case. But by giving a whole slew of answers, the theologians introduced a whole new set of contradictions! The simplest answer was that the two passages contradicted each other. Why not save all the trouble and just admit it?
And this is a pattern I saw occurring over and over and over. In an attempt to solve one contradiction, a theologian introduces another. Then they solve that one and it introduces another. On and on this goes, all the while producing strife, doubt, stress, church splits, anger, frustration, and everything they were supposedly trying to avoid by searching God in the first place.
From my study of science, I had learned that often the principles that guide what appears to be an extremely complex effect are generally super simple in nature. This is what is known as Ockham’s Razor.
The bizarre thing is that Ockham’s razor is never performed in the church. Because the simplest answer seems to be that the entire religion (take your pick: Mormonism, Christianity, Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.) is man made. But, well, God’s ways are higher than ours so I guess we should expect the answers to be super complicated, convoluted, and often impossible to explain.
Sorry, that doesn’t work for me because I cannot stand in front of a group of people and say “God is like X” with any confidence any more, because I know just how much every concept of God is tainted by the fingerprints of inventing theologians and human potential for error.
Does this mean we cannot know and so we should give up and dissolve into a nihilistic haze? Um. I get this a lot and I don’t understand the question. Maybe you would dissolve into a nihilistic haze like an ex-cult member discovering the real world. But not me. I mean, if you want to waste your life and energy studying something that seems to only breed strife and potentially die with a misunderstanding – go ahead. Looks like we will both die with a misunderstanding, but at least I didn’t waste my life on something I knew – from the start – would only lead to contradiction after contradiction.
Theologian (fundamentalist):
Reality = God + Spiritual Realm + Universe
Solve for God, the Spiritual Realm, and Universe where every solution does not contradict these ten thousand unquestionable assertions about God, the Spiritual Realm, and the Universe. Now spend your whole life doing this and call it spiritual growth.
Agnostic / Atheist:
Reality = Present Understanding of Universe + Unknown
Solve for Unknown, even if it means changing everything about your present understanding of the universe. Do this as often as necessary and always assume that every item of your current understanding could be wrong.
- Josh
Super post Josh, I have to go back over it when I have a bit ‘o time later.
“[Nevermind that this entire argument is bunk on so many levels that it would take a book to explain them.]”
Or even more than one book! Per Luke 21, “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” :^)
“The people I would ask questions of would often grasp at any concepts, theological statements, Bible verses, prayer time, etc. in an attempt to resolve my doubt. It was as if the answer given was not as important as finding an answer that would make my doubt go away.”
It is as though the definition of “truth” becomes, “that which makes my doubt go away” rather than, “that which can be considered demonstrably true.” Liberal Christianity says “That which makes my doubt go away may be different than that which makes your doubt go away.” The fundamentalist states that you have a limited body of solutions, “That which makes my doubt go away must be able to make your doubt go away too.”
“Did anybody care about finding the right answers, even if it meant their current faith was wrong?”
They say they are willing to do that, as long as you maintain that their presupposition of biblical inerrancy is not to be meddled with. That has become incomprehensible to me now, not that someone would believe that, but that someone would argue from a position where that presupposition cannot be challenged.
You get put through the wringer once you start monkeying with the biblical inerrancy presupposition, don’t you? I really wish I hadn’t been so exhorted this past year to “Just trust”, or to to find a hermeneutic that works for me to believe in God in an acceptable way, or to keep “pressing in” “keep praying” etc. ad nausea. There is no way I could ever find any peace with those pressures, it felt like being put on the wrack. “Confess! Confess!!!”
Or “rack”, heh…
Well, guys, why do all these folks feel that Scripture is supposed to be “inerrant,” in the first place? What does this term mean exactly, and was this actually the opinion of the early church fathers??
Granted Scripture is an authority for the faith, and practice of the church, salvation history, not to be taken lightly.
But, is God really concerned about presenting us with a perfect book, or in humankind knowing the living Lord?
Do we even know if the synoptic writers meant to establish a complete biography of the life of Jesus with every detail presented in precise chronological order? It doesn’t seem so to me. I think the gospels contain more the essence of what Jesus said or did.
I mean, truly, why are folks concerned about who got to the tomb first? How many angels were near the entrance, or for heaven’s sake, even the precise number of times the cock crowed.
The central truth is which all the writers agree is that “He is risen!! ” Praise to Christ.
Also, Josh, I think you bring out some good points concerning the epistles. These writers were addressing situations that arose in local churches in that time, and culture. These letters were meant to be read aloud to the entire congregation.
I think we should expect some variation in opinion depending on the writer’s perspective, and the problems addressed which are the focus at hand.
To my mind, Scripture is God’s word, but also the words of men. Not all of it is of equal value, and sometimes the advice given can certainly be culturally bound. Overall context is important too, I think.
Oh well, enough of me ranting on. I could say a whole lot more, but will end for now.
Blessings to you Josh, and every good gift.
P.S. As far as I’m concerned Jesus wants all believers to find a oneness, and love for each other in Him. The church should not be splitting over every issue, and disagreement that comes down the theological pike. How does this honor the Lord, or reflect His love?? It’s simply a disgrace to the gospel.
But, is God really concerned about presenting us with a perfect book, or in humankind knowing the living Lord?
That is exactly what I began thinking myself, Grace. It’s a great point.
I mean, truly, why are folks concerned about who got to the tomb first? How many angels were near the entrance, or for heaven’s sake, even the precise number of times the cock crowed.
Because if they did not get this right, then how do we know they got this right:
The central truth is which all the writers agree is that “He is risen!! ” Praise to Christ.
Take a look at this story, Grace:
http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/ekechart.html
Notice that all the witnesses agree that Daniel was raised from the dead, but they disagree on details.
So, should we believe that Daniel Ekechukwa was raised from the dead too?
That story about Daniel was the final linchpin in my rejection of the resurrection of Jesus.
Josh, I think you’ve gone back to writing about “leaving the faith” but it’s good, I was sad when I thought you wouldn’t write about it anymore- it really makes the world of us who leave the faith less lonely. I’m still reading through this post.
As I read your post it makes me laugh b/c I read they funniest comment on a profile page by a Christian women who was “praising” the music of a christian artist- she said “every word is inspired by “God” to encourage you in every walk of life” I’m translating from Spanish- I thought it was the funniest thing ever, not only is the Bible inspired- but the music they listen to is too-lol. What kinds of hermanutics do I need for decifering music?
Josh, echoing the point you made above, I read this last week on another blog:
( http://evaluatingchristianity.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/more-on-biblical-contradictions/ )
“…the point of Biblical contradictions isn’t that the Bible says that the mustard seed is the smallest seed and therefore it’s all hokum; the point is that, taken together, the Bible looks like the work of ordinary people telling stories that try to explain the mysteries of the universe given the limitations of the knowledge they had at the time. It doesn’t look like anyone with a pipeline to the almighty, all-knowing Creator of the Universe. That’s all.”
Grace, I appreciate the perspective you write about. It took some time for me to even be able to understand how people have faith that way, having left more conservative Christianity. I think I understand it better now. Do you think you would feel the same way if you did not have a bible, if you had just heard the story of the gospel maybe word of mouth from Jesus’ time to the present? Because at that point it really is faith, rather than a set of proofs which end with stating, “It is obviously all true, and you are clearly stubbornly resisting the truth if you refuse to believe us.”
Like many know it wasn’t the great contradiction in verses that got me, but the contradiction in “God’s grace”- if God doesn’t permit divorce and remarriage to people who just married the wrong person- than grace/mercy theory is broken and the salvation story has no meaning.
I can relate to those crazy answers- luckily I don’t think I’ve ever had an apologetics course, but I’m very smart and had come up with many of the answers on my own- though I think a little bit of apologetics did seep in regarding “creation”. I would always just brush contradictions away by saying- focus on “Jesus” until I realized Jesus contradicted the salvation story with his take on marriage.
The Old Testament is full of those contradictions- in regards to events and how many people participated in which events and so on, I was always told that the contradiction was “possibly” another story that was very similar.
Wow, Bonita, honestly – that is pretty cool. One of the things I noticed about “intellectually elite” people who study the Bible is that they are not normally convinced by arguments like the one you present. Somehow everyone is just supposed to suck it up and conform to the text. So they would just say something like even if you did marry the “wrong” person, you must obey the Bible.
You, however, discovered flaws in the simple concepts and that was enough for you.
The type of training I received created such a massive web of… well… intellectual banter… that simple contradictions like that were pushed under the rug and replaced with high, intellectual arguments. And if you didn’t agree with the high intellectual arguments, then you were laughed at (I’ve had it happen…) because, obviously if you understood them, you would agree. I’m tired of that. That is why I try to take the intellectual arguments and communicate them in everyday language. Sortof like Bart Ehrman does.
As my friend Brandt said about his apologetics class: “It just seemed like an exercise in human vanity.” Just a bunch of people seeing how smart they can be defending the faith.
I respect people who leave on such straight-forward evidence now. It shows you are independent. It’s healthy.
I know, their are many extremes to Christianity- some Christians just look past the simplest flaws while others make excuses for the really big ones that are seen in that faith. I had many things that knocked my faith out from under me, but the above said one seemed to have meant the most- a flaw in mercy and grace kind of killed the “gospel” lol.
I’ll suspend judgment on this one, Joshua.
Needless to say I’m pretty skeptical about this event in Africa. It appears there is some question about whether this pastor was actually deceased at all. Plus, we have to be honest, and understand that some of these faith healing ministers are making a darn good living going around performing various apparent miracles, and healings.
I’m just sharing my own opinion, here, but it does seem to me that the minor variations within the gospel accounts may add to their authenticity. It definitely suggests that a bunch of people weren’t getting together, and colluding to come up with a story.
And unlike this German faith healer, I can’t see what the early Christians had to really gain by proclaiming the risen Christ, materially speaking anyway, just persecution, and death.
We’ll have to agree to disagree, Josh.
Atimetorend, I will have to think more about your question, I’m not sure.
4Rioz, I think the teaching of Jesus, and divorce needs to be understood against it’s cultural context. In His time, men were being free to divorce their wives for any minor cause. These uneducated women, and their children were cast out, and often left on the street with nothing,
Jesus is protecting, and elevating the status of women, as well as affirming the sanctity of marriage by His teaching to these people.
In my denomination, we really stress using reason, as well as Biblical authority, and the tradition of the church in coming to an interpretation of the Scripture.
Does it seem reasonable that Jesus would want a woman to stay with a man who is abusive, or may put her life, and safety in danger?? We live in a broken, and fallen world. While divorce may never be the ideal will of God, sometimes it is the lesser evil. God forgives divorce. His mercy, and grace are with us all of our lives.
Jesus also often uses hyperbole in His teaching to make a point, and he speaks sometimes in broad, and general principles. Just to give one example, outside of this divorce teaching. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that if someone strikes us on the cheek, we should simply turn the other one also.
Should we literally interpret this to mean, that it’s righteous to stand by, and allow ourselves to be physically attacked, beat up, with doing nothing to defend ourselves in anyway? Or is Jesus simply expressing a general principle of non-retaliation, and doing everything we can to pursue a way of peace?
I’m sure most people in the church would interpret this passage in the later way.
And, yet, when it comes to this teaching of divorce, and remarriage, so many are about the literal letter of the law.
To tell the truth, in my personal opinion, 4Rioz, basic common sense has flown out the window.
Needless to say I’m pretty skeptical about this event in Africa.
So am I. We agree! Common ground is found.
For me, I just wanted to be consistent in my skepticism toward events like this. Since I was going into apologetics, I needed to make sure I was not rejecting the “other guy” just so that I could reinforce what I *wanted* to be true.
And, yet, when it comes to this teaching of divorce, and remarriage, so many are about the literal letter of the law.
To tell the truth, in my personal opinion, 4Rioz, basic common sense has flown out the window.
Agreed, common sense has flown out the window. But if common sense works so well, why do we need the Bible to tell us anything? Why not just do what makes sense and call it good?
It seems like respect for the Bible is only getting in the way of things, not helping.
That’s the part I do not understand, Grace. Or maybe it is the part I understand all too well :)
Grace, I agree with you. I don’t know your beliefs, but I used to have your stance on things. I still do, I believe in doing what is “best” or what makes the most sense. I had known someone in a situation regarding marriage and divorce and it was the saddest thing ever. I really used to be able to believe that grace would “cover” everything until I realized that “adultures” dont’ enter the kingdom of heaven, and the conclusion I came to was that if one has an unhappy marriage their is no way out, b/c by getting out and moving on with someone else the divorcee now becomes an adulterer and can’t enter heaven. The Bible also says liars won’t enter heaven, but in verses like that it’s so much easier for one to be ride of that sin, but in divorce the only way for one to stop being an adulterer is not to be one. Does that make sense? Like my friend with the bad marriage, he wanted out, but if he were to get out his only option was to live the rest of his life single. Yes, the Bible says God forgives sin, but for him to have remarried he would have been living in sin, and would have been an adulterer. I think it’s a sad thing to be honest.
But I agree with both of you, common sense has gone out the window.
I also understand the cultural reasoning behind things, but supposing Jesus were who people say he is, why didn’t he clarify or have one of the gospel writers clarify? It would have eased so much of the pain and suffering people go through for having a bad marriage. I even saw this problem in my dad’s life, when I was involved in the church I used to try and get him to get involved, but he felt so worthless about his bad marriage. Both he and my friend love “God”. I hope I don’t sound too forceful in my comments, my writing always comes out stronger than intendended.
Josh, I think we need a balance. Jesus said the whole law can be wrapped up in loving God, and loving our neighbor as ourself.
And, we can, and should use our minds to sort this out, and to engage Scripture.
But, the rub is human reason, “common sense,” is also finite, and fallen. What seems good to us in the short term, may not be in the long term. “There is a way that seems right to a man…”
So, I think we do need some objective standard, laws, in away that provide structure, and accountability, that point us toward that good, sensible, and loving way to live.
And, in all honesty, the more mature we become on all levels, the less structure, and direction is needed, I think.
St. Francis of Assisi said, “Love God, and do as you please.” Do you see his point?
Hey, I want you to know that your questions, and challenges are causing me to dig deeper into my own faith, and life in God. Always a good thing. So, thanks.
Did you ever consider attending a more progressive, mainstream seminary? They would love you there. :)
Bonita, I’m a committed follower of Jesus Christ, orthodox, classically evangelical, but not a fundamentalist. The Episcopal church is my home.
I don’t have all the answers, either, Bonita. But, I’m so very sorry about your dad, and friend. My heart aches to hear this. This whole position is certainly not the stance of my church.
God’s grace, and mercy is with us through all our lives, no matter what. People can make the Scripture say anything they might want taken out of context. But, let’s face it Bonita, if our partcipation in God’s kingdom depended on being free of every sin, and imperfection, we are all toast..
Romans 8:31-39, really speaks to me in all this.
If I can be of any help, Bonita, I can ask Josh to send my e-mail to you. Please let me know. I’m married to a Christian man who had been divorced, so I’m able to understand. Have three step-kids, too.