Archives for December 2016

This is the first ‘pathos’ argument for my being Christian in my series of posts: why I’m a Christian.

This particular reason is usually treated as the least worthy reason to care about Jesus: the doctrine of hell. For instance, fear of hell is not a reason to think Christianity is true. Just like fear of werewolves is not reason to think that they are real. But it is a reason to consider that some religion, perhaps Christianity, may be true.

The doctrine of hell, that some experience of post-mortem divine punishment for misdeeds in the present life, is rejected by many intellectually and by even more in terms of their personal practice.

In fact, many people seem to reject the notion of God precisely because they find the doctrine of any sort of hell unconscionable.

I’m not writing this to defend the notion of hell. Remember, I’m writing about emotional reasons why I’m a Christian.

But think of it this way, instead of rejecting the notion of God because hell is a terrifying notion, consider the possibility that hell is real. Whatever it is: eternal destruction, eternal torture, fire, darkness, hanging out with all the losers, haters, and jerks you hate and who hate you for eternity, etc, it can’t be pleasant.

On top of hell clearly being terrible, versions of it have been believed by billions of people. Now, billions can be wrong and often are, but our instincts have a tendency to point us in the right direction if we consider them at the bar of reason.

The possibility of a post-mortem punishment for immoral behavior is worth checking out. Like Fight Club reminds us: on a long enough time line, everybody’s survival rate drops to zero. That’s why I care about hell. In real life, my normal motivation for doing the right thing is usually ease in the moment. My life is set up so that moral behavior requires little effort. I’m not sure how good of a person I would be if times got tough. But nevertheless my desire for ease does cause me to consider the possibility of hell quite seriously. If misdeeds are punished, then that conflicts with my desire for ease. Because of the possibility of hell there are three things I can think of to do just in case (these are not contradictory):

1. Seek forgiveness from whoever invented or cares about my morality.
2. Be as excellent of a person as I can (not just outwardly, but learning to desire goodness inwardly).
3. See if some religion seems true and adhere to it.

We’re all going to die. This Johnny Cash song is a good reminder:

In the first post on pathos, I talked about the existential fear of ending up on the wrong side of an eternal power. Another aspect of Christianity’s appeal is its inherent tribalism. (This post is in a series.)

Now wait, isn’t Christianity a universal experience? Isn’t it available to all? Doesn’t Jesus say, “Make disciples of all nations…”?

And yes, Christianity is universalist in that sense. Paul, a Hebrew of Hebrews, said so:

Romans 3:29-30 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, (30) since God is one–who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

On the other hand, Jesus said things like this:

Matthew 23:8-10 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. (9) And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. (10) Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.

Jesus’ call to priority in the lives of his followers is rather tribal.

The fact of the matter is that we all look up to leaders and even great leaders typically see themselves as carrying on a legacy, renewing a tradition, or filling the gap left by another. In the case of Christianity, there are lesser leaders: Peter, Paul, Moses, Augustine, Aquinas, Wesley, local pastors, parents, etc. But at the end of it all, the question every person has to ask is something like this, “Who is my leader, to whom do I give allegiance?” The first answer to most people is, “myself.” This is well and good everybody has a duty to seek the wellbeing of their soul. The other answers are probably good too. I’m loyal to my family, my boss, my nation, the traditions that made it, my school, favorite team, my church, and so-on. And again, these things can be good, but only some of them are steady and some can go sour and some can go evil. Moses himself said, “You shall not fall in with the many to do evil… (Exodus 23:2)” Tribal loyalties have limits.

For the Christian, the conversation goes further:

John 6:66-69 After this [some difficult to accept teaching] many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. (67) So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” (68) Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, (69) and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

For the Christian, the answer of final allegiance boils down to this question: Do I live my life based on the example and teachings of Jesus?

When people have your back it’s a good feeling. Knowing, for instance, that my cousins or roommates had my back at times in life when things got ugly was comforting well beyond the time the situation was resolved.

Similarly, when the man out front is excellent and does all things well, one feels proud and excited to be a part. I remember seeing my karate instructor, at the time 41, best a much younger Brazilian jiu-jistu instructor in several practice matches to help the younger man get ready for a tournament (in which the young man placed first). Knowing that my karate instructor could easily defeat a younger expert filled me with pride.

Similarly, knowing that Jesus is simply the best and highest revelation of God, or rather seeing him as the most compelling tribal leader among the many is encouraging. This, coupled with the fact that he tells Christians to “love one another even as I [Jesus] have loved you,” means that in the church one has a community with a tribal leader of universal relevance and a concern for the group that helps you know that your needs won’t be trivialized.

So, I’m a Christian because I see Jesus as my teacher and my leader in this way and I see his people as my people. I am a Christian, Jesus is the best leader, and the church is the best tribe.

I’ve slowly been writing summaries of my reasons for being a Christian using the three phases of persuasion: ethos, pathos, and logos. This is the third post under pathos (emotions).

When it comes to emotional reasons for being a Christian, this one might seem the most unusual, but here it is: The idea of a cosmos teeming with purpose imbued upon it by an infinite intelligence within which a conflict of temporal and everlasting significance takes place is just damned interesting. Worldviews with cosmic level conflicts this sort can be found in most ancient cultures.[1] That the Bible contains a worldview like those of the ancient shouldn’t astonish us, as it was written and compiled when the majority of people thought this way.

But what does astonish me about the Biblical version of the story is that mankind has a purpose other than slavery to the gods (image and likeness to God), that the gods didn’t spring from the world itself (one God made the world and the rest of the gods), and that the conflict in the Biblical story is about good and evil rather than about noisiness, disputes over authority and property, or some other such things.

On an emotional level such a worldview is satisfying. I love stoicism and see it as a powerful philosophical tool for controlling your emotions, gaining self-control, and enduring physical pain. But when the stoics counsel us to see everything which happens as good in itself, it falls flat for me. But the Biblical idea that “the god of this age” or “the ruler of darkness” is somehow in control of the earth or this section of the universe by some result of cosmic moral rebellion makes the evils of humanity much less excusable. Not only so, but imagining that God’s good world is under the temporary rule of a quasi-divine sociopath adds a degree of significance to our actions and some plausible deniability for inexcusable evils that happen for which a universe ruled merely by providence would offer no satisfaction.

Going further, the idea that I and those around me have some deeper purpose for existence than any individual temporal event could reveal is quite appealing. Indeed, it’s ennobling to think that we await the potential restoration of God’s glory to our bodies and minds in a way that is so unimaginably fantastic that ecstatic anticipation is the most reasonable emotional reaction. This constitutes a powerful stimulus to take life seriously, joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, work and rest, etc. Even more so, helping the needy, hurting, and ignored is a rebellion against that great source of misery who prowls like a lion to engorge itself upon the souls of hapless creatures buried in their petty disputes and hatreds. And because I’m a bit of a natural anarchist, the idea of rebelling against a cosmic being gets me going. Now, the flip side to that is that obedience to God is obedience to a greater cosmic being, but we’ll take about that in another post.

Now, I’ve presented no logical arguments here. And in fact somebody could be standing next to me who believes in a purposeless universe watching a tragedy unfold and we could try to help together without ever considering our beliefs on this matter or bringing them up.

This isn’t to say that my belief is untrue or that it doesn’t matter either way. I’m just saying that the belief is part of the symbolic and intellectual scaffolding that makes Christianity emotionally attractive to me.

References

[1] Gregory A. Boyd, God at War: The Bible & Spiritual Conflict (InterVarsity Press, 1997).

Other Posts

1. Pathos
   1. Hell
   2. Tribalism
   3. Cosmic Story
   4. Social Life
   5. Happiness
2. Ethos
   1. The moral credibility of Jesus
   2. The moral credibility of Christianity’s best
   3. The power of Western Civilization
3. Logos
   1. Why I think God exists
   2. Why I think Jesus was raised