I had a conversation recently about the evidence of God. In
academia, and media, there seems to be an assumption that there’s no proof, and
therefore no evidence, of God’s existence. I shared with my friend that, in my
life, there’s a lot of experiential evidence. When I experience the spiritual
presence of God, I often feel particular physical indicators. I was surprised,
a few years ago, to learn that those physical sensations don’t happen to
everyone. But they do happen to me, consistently under spiritual circumstances.
Also, there’s the way words come clearly into my mind, after
prayer, when I’m paying attention. Sometimes long after a prayer, when a
circumstance arises that seems to answer that prayer, I ask, “Was that…?” And
the answer comes, “Yes.”
I can’t say that I can get the words I need on demand, at
any moment, without some spiritual struggle. But I can say that my evidentiary
experience that God is there is significant enough to convince me.
I described this evidence to my friend, who is also
Christian but not of the same faith as me, and he said that was exactly how it
was for him too. Also, he’d be reading scriptures (he has learned Hebrew to
read in the original when possible), and his mind would open up and ideas and
connections would come, seeming to just flow in, beyond anything he could think
up himself. It wasn’t something he was imagining.
That happens to me too. They say, when you want to talk to
God, pray; but when you want to hear from God, read the scriptures. The words
on the page may or may not be your direct answer, but those words will seem to
lead you to thoughts and connections that you needed as an answer.
For those of us who are religious, there’s so much evidence
that it’s puzzling when people say there isn’t any.
There’s a new Prager U video about the evidence for God, as
well as a number of older ones. But that’s not really what I’m looking at
today. I’m interested in what religion is.
I’ve finally been reading J. D. Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy. In it he talks about
his grandmother’s personal brand of religion:
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| cover image from Amazon |
The theology she taught was unsophisticated, but it provided
a message I needed to hear. To coast through life was to squander my God-given
talent, so I had to work hard. I had to take care of my family because
Christian duty demanded it. I needed to forgive, not just for my mother’s sake
but for my own. I should never despair, for God had a plan (p. 262).
There was a brief time in his life when he went to live with
his biological father, who became strictly religious after leaving the family
and starting anew. Vance didn’t quite ever feel at home there, but he did
appreciate some things about that peaceful, structured, religious world (the
footnote is included in his book):
Dad embodied a phenomenon social scientists have observed for
decades: Religious folks are much happier. Regular church attendees commit
fewer crimes, are in better health, live longer, make more money, drop out of
high school less frequently, and finish college more frequently than those who
don’t attend church at all.[i]
MIT economist Jonathan Gruber even found that the
relationship was causal: It’s not
just that people who happen to live successful lives also go to church, it’s
that church seems to promote good habits (p. 282).
There’s plenty of social science discussion in that book for
another day. But there’s another somewhat unorthodox definition of religion I
came across in a Jordan Peterson Q&A at Lafayette College. I’m including
the question, to give a bit of context, and I highlighted the essential
definition:
Q: I was watching a few of your interviews in preparation for
this, and I heard you speak about religion quite a bit. And, if you look up
what religion means in the Webster dictionary, you get something like, “a
system of faith centered on a supernatural being or beings,” or something like
that. But I’ve heard you use religion to describe something like punk rockers,
for example, that that’s a religious experience. So my first question would be,
how do you define what is considered religious? ….
JP: Religious is what you act out.
Q: What’s that?
JP: Religious is what you act out.
Q: Anything you act out?
JP: Everything you act
out is predicated on your implicit axioms. The system of implicit axioms that
you hold as primary is your religious belief system. It doesn’t matter whether
you’re an atheist or not. That’s just surface noise.
Q: So it has nothing to do with divinity or—?
JP: No, I didn’t say that. No.
Q: It doesn’t necessarily have to do with those?
JP: No, it probably necessarily has to do with it too. But it
doesn’t necessarily have to do with your voluntarily articulated statements
about whether or not you believe in something like a transcendent deity. So,
what you act out is much more what you are than what you say about yourself.
And what the hell do you know about what you believe, anyways? You’re
complicated, man.
Q: It’s a fair question.
JP: Well, seriously, people are complicated. You know, like,
we’re not transparent to ourselves at all. That’s why we have to go to
university and study psychology. It’s like, we’re not exactly black boxes, but
we are the most complicated things there are. Right? And we can’t even program
our VCR clocks. So, it’s like, how the hell can we propose to understand
ourselves? And, you know, I’m existentially oriented, which is to say that I
think that what you hold to be true is best determined as a consequence of an
analysis of your actions, rather than as a consequence of an analysis of what
you purport to believe.
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| Jordan Peterson at Lafayette College |
Now, in order to act—
You can’t act without a hierarchy of values… because you can’t act
unless you think that one thing is better than another. Because, why would you
act, otherwise? So that means that you’re embedded within a hierarchy of
values, whether you know it or not. Or maybe multiple fragmentary and competing
hierarchies of value, which is all the worse for you, by the way, because it
just makes you very confused.
That hierarchy of values has an axiomatic— It’s based on axioms. And the probability
that you understand them is very low, because generally people don’t understand
their axioms. But that axiomatic system is essentially your religious system.
And there’s no way out of that, as far as I can tell.
And you can say, “Well, it isn’t predicated on a conscious
belief in a transcendent deity.” OK, have it your way. But, you know, most
people in this room act out a Judeo-Christian ethic. And not only do they act
it out, if they’re treated in a manner that’s not commensurate with that ethic,
they get very, very annoyed.
For example, if I fail to treat you as if you’re an
embodiment of a divine fragment, let’s say, that’s characterized by the ability
to make free choice, and to determine your own destiny in some sense, or if I
fail to treat you as if you’re a valued member—a valued, contributing member of
the polity, as a sovereign individual, then you’ll find that very offensive and
become angry. OK, then, that’s what you believe.
If I ask you if you believe any of that, well, that’s a whole
different story. You might give me some radical leftist nonsense. But that
doesn’t take away from the fundamentals of your actions.
I’ve said before that, while it’s possible for atheists to
live moral lives, they’re not doing it in a vacuum; they’re doing it within a
civilization that sets up certain values.
·
We believe that each human life is precious.
·
We believe that human life is more precious than
non-human life.
·
We believe that human beings should be free to
choose how to live their lives—how to earn a living, how to form and raise their
family, how to live out their religious beliefs.
·
We believe that people can own property, and we
need to respect that ownership.
·
We believe that people should tell the truth to
one another.
·
We believe that people should keep their word—have
integrity, not betray one another.
·
We believe it is good to voluntarily help one
another, especially the less fortunate.
·
We believe that purposely harming another person
is wrong, except in self-defense.
We have laws against stealing, against perjury and bearing
false witness. We have laws against murder and assault. We argue about the
rightness of capital punishment (which takes non-innocent life as a response to
serious crime), and about abortion or euthanasia (which takes innocent life but
involves issues related to choice).
We think we should be decent toward one another, and
generally polite. It makes it easier for all of us to live in peace, which we
prefer.
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| The Ten Commandments at the Texas State Capitol |
An atheist can tell you these things are right and good, and
moral, and that’s why he does them. But all of them relate to the Ten
Commandments. They are moral questions, very much in the religious sense.
If an atheist lives in a savage community, never being
exposed to the moral codes of civilization, what are the odds he will invent
for himself a civilized moral code? Is it possible that he's actually a believer—as his
actions show—even though he is unwilling to say so, even to himself?
I’m interested in that Judeo-Christian ethic that Dr.
Peterson talks about. Do you feel “annoyed”—or hurt, or betrayed—when someone
lies to you? Do you like it when the person you’re in a committed relationship
with has sex with other people? Do you think it’s fine for people to be violent
against you? If not, maybe you actually prefer civilization. We agree on that.
That makes me hopeful.
In this world, in which we are split and splintering, I’m
looking for things we have in common. It just might be that the Judeo-Christian
foundation of this country is worth preaching—and by that I mean explaining
better, more clearly, including the evidence we experience. Also by our actions. And by telling the actual truth. It may
require that we stand up and insist on truth, while we still have the freedom
to speak it.
We’re not a country built on geography or tribal heritage.
We’re built on the idea that all of us human beings are created equal, with
inherent rights—that come from God, not government. Among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which includes property as well as all
the other personal choices in our lives and families. And government’s limited
role is solely for the protection of these rights.
You don’t get a country that doesn’t infringe on those
rights unless you value these very religious ideas.
As I think about it, the very creation of this country is
additional evidence that God exists.
[i]
Linda Gorman, “Is Religion Good for You?” The National Bureau of Economic
Research, http://wwwnber.org/digest/oct05/w11377.html
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