----- Original Message -----
From: "Marvin Long, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2002 12:13 PM
Subject: Theism, atheism, and in-between
>
> I don't think it's that simple unless you assume that a) all "theisms"
are
> equivalent, which they're not IMO, or b) in order to discuss the nature
of
> religious belief or spirituality or the divine, one must be already
> committed to a particular affirmative stance about the divine, which is
> silly. (To believe in God, but not actually have any particular beliefs
> about God, is nothing more than an emotionally reluctant non-theism or
> agnosticism.)
One belief that most theists I know of have about the divine is that it
transcends human explanations. Further, there is recognition of the same
territory covered by different traditions. For example, the 'Gita has one
of the best descriptions of the Christian Walk that I have ever read.
> No, the debate as I see it, in order to have any meaning, must first be
> over the character of human experience and knowledge, beliefs about and
> experiences of the divine - or allegedly divine - included. Your reading
> of the metaphor only works if you can show that all theisms - beliefs
> about the divine - are reducible to a single "volume" (Moby Dick), so to
> speak. I don't think that's the case, which is a big part of any
> common-sense argument against a Judeo-Christian God. Christianity,
> Hinduism, Buddhism, the various animisms and polytheisms: they cannot,
to
> my knowledge, be reduced to a single common conception of the divine.
No, but any single concept of the divine is bound to be limited and flawed
: as seeing through a glass, darkly. However, we can see each other as
fellow travelers. I don't doubt that you and I could come up with religions
that are so anathema to my way of thinking, that I cannot see them as
fellow travelers with myself. However, our "Faiths Together" group has
member churches from a very wide range of theists, and we do see a lot of
commonalty.
Further, I think the commonality is in area that non-theists would deny
exists, so it is very hard to talk about. Let me give one example.
Anthony de Mello is a Jesuit who grew up in India and studied spiritual
techniques at a Zen monastery for years. He has written books on Eastern
techniques for Christian spirituality, as well as collections of mystical
stories from many different traditions. The theology is clearly different,
but the spirituality is very similar.
>All talk about the divine and about good and bad, but
> the nature of the Ultimate, and how one realizes it, differ, and many
> Ultimate Truths have no room for a God along the Christian model.
But, what if there is but one Ultimate Truth, and many partial
understandings of that Truth?
> If one must believe in God to open the book, then you've basically just
> kicked Buddha out of the "theist" club.
But, there is a clear recognition of the divine by many Buddhists. From
what I understand, Buddha accepted the existence of gods, demigods, karma,
reincarnation, etc. I have not studied Buddhism enough to be sure of the
details of the theology. But, I'm guessing that the theology is not really
critical; its awareness of the grace around us...to use Christian terms.
There has to be a reason that one of the greatest Christian mystics of the
20th century was very comfortable studying in a Buddhist monastery.
Shinto too, I think ("we have no
> theology; we dance" according to a Shinto priest I read about somewhere).
> Confucianism too, and probably many versions of Hinduism (about which I
> hesitate to generalize because IIRC its practice takes so many forms).
>
> My point is that to debate "theism: yes or no" may be to make an
> unwarranted assumption about the necessary character of spirituality.
> Which god the theist believes in; which god the atheist believes he is
> denying: these are important questions. The western ecumenicalist
theist
> tends to assume almost everything can be reduced to Christianity one way
> or another, which I think is false; the dogmatic forms of western atheism
> tends to make the same assumption, denouncing all religion because
> Christianity is disagreeable, thereby possibly cutting one off from a
>wide variety of possible ways of being in the world.
Huh? All that is required is the assumption that they are talking about
the same divine we are. Now, when I describe things, I definitely do it in
a Christian context. But, that doesn't mean that I think I can reduce
Hinduism to Christianity or Buddhism to Christianity. Rather, I believe
that the Hindu prays to the same God I do, and the Buddhist, when she
meditates, is in commune with my God. How God handles that is, IMHO, God's
business. Further, I don't doubt that I have an extremely limited
viewpoint. Paul comments on this explicitly, as do teachers in other
traditions.
>
> Hence the "book cover" metaphor: it assumes there are only two opposite
> choices, which may well be a false assumption about the nature of the
> world and the nature of human experience. The problem with the
>assumption that anything that isn't atheism is theism (as a belief in God)
is that
>it begs the question of *which* theism; which Ultimate; which concept of
> being; and so on.
>
> Also: what if opening the "book" and reading it correctly actually leads
> one from theism (a "naive" belief in a creator/caretaker God) to an
> atheism (or non-theism) in which nature itself is divine and amoral and
> transcendent of all the categories posited by conventional religious
> doctrines? That sounds a lot like what happened to Sakyamuni.
Where did you get that the divine was immoral to Buddha? There are still
actions that result in good and bad karma.
I think part of it, is that non-theists deny the existence of that which
the theists are talking about, and so see superficial differences; while
theists see the underlying similarities.
Dan M.
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