The Imaginative Nature of Christian Theism
"A religious person is someone who
finds reality too difficult to deal with on its own terms, and has assembled in
his imagination a fantasy world ruled by a fantasy consciousness which
serendipitously has chosen him as a receptacle of favor." – a former Christian
In the final
installment of my five-part series Bolt’s Pile of Knapp, we
saw Chris Bolt complaining about my verdict that his god is imaginary.
Specifically, Bolt wrote:
Unfortunately Bethrick
seems to be more concerned here with his subsequent rant about God being
imaginary (something he constantly asserts but does not prove; he admits that
he does not even think that it needs to be proven) then he is with actual
answers to the questions he supposedly has (after having interacted with presuppositionalists for many years including Paul Manata, James Anderson, and others).
In the
final post of my comprehensive interaction with his error-laden and evasion-saturated
response to my
post on the uniformity of nature, I listed no less than 10 pertinent facts,
each of which strongly indicates the inherently imaginary nature of god-belief,
including Christian god-belief. Taken together, these 10 facts serve as
insurmountable evidence that the Christian god is indeed imaginary.
Below I have expanded my original list, both by developing its original points
and by tacking on a few additional points which only help seal my case. Notice
that since the posting of my original points (on March 23 of this year), Chris
Bolt has not engaged any of them (check his
website for yourself), even though he’s had plenty of opportunity to do so.
Consider the following:
1. Anyone can imagine a supernatural
being, including the god described by Christianity or any other religion. Just
as one can imagine werewolves, leprechauns, the Tooth Fairy, Godzilla, Star
Trek adventures, or any other known work of fiction or fantasy, one can easily
imagine a god residing in some supernatural realm calling the shots over
humanity and pleasuring itself in creating worlds, causing mischief in men’s
lives, issuing condemning judgments on souls which have passed to the beyond,
etc. Even a child can imagine such things, if he so chooses.
2. Religious philosophy provides no
epistemological alternative to the imagination as a means of “knowing” its god.
Religious apologists are quick to stipulate which means of knowledge will not
provide the human mind with “knowledge” of “the supernatural,” whether it be sense perception, science, etc., thus purportedly
identifying at the same time those methods which cannot disprove the existence
of their god. However, when it comes to identifying the means by which one can
allegedly acquire knowledge of “the supernatural,” they provide at best highly
vague statements which never indicate any testable method, but under scrutiny
appear to be masking the imaginative foundations of the belief in question. Notions such as “divine revelation,” “a priori knowledge,” the “sensus divinitatus,” or the claim
to possess some surefire argument whose premises remain mysterious, are
typically what they issue for general consumption. In fact, it is often
difficult to see the difference between what they appear to be claiming as a
method of securing knowledge of “the supernatural,” and the insistence that we
accept their claims merely on their own say so. Meanwhile, by what means does
anyone “know” the god they’re talking about, if not by means of imagination?
Blank out.
3. Adherents learn details about their god
from written stories (which puts the Christian god, for example, in the same
camp as characters in texts which are known to be fictional). Written stories
give the human mind an opportunity to develop vivid imaginations and fantasies.
The dominant function of allegory in religious literature is to provide the
imagination with the fundamental material to work with in developing lifelike
as well as larger-than-life psychological replicas of heroes, villains, events,
and cosmic personalities portrayed in religious literature while allowing for a
strong element of personal relevance. The Christian believer, for instance,
reads about his god in the Old and New Testaments. In these sources, which are
dubbed revelatory communication directly from the god he reads about in their
pages, the believer finds stories which provide often vivid narratives which
the believer personalizes in his imagination of them and accepts as truthful,
historical accounts. To quell any nagging doubts about the historical
authenticity of the content of these accounts, believers may absorb himself in extra-biblical literature which presumes their
truthfulness, or at any rate seeks in one way or another to establish it. Such
efforts overlook the fact that what has actually happened is that the believer
has read a set of stories and has installed them in his imagination as if they
were in fact true before the question of their truth has been critically
examined.
4. Religious philosophy squelches reason
as man’s only means of knowledge, crippling the mind’s ability to distinguish
the rational from the irrational (thus allowing the adherent to believe that
concepts like ‘omniscience’ and ‘omnipotence’ are valid). The question then
becomes: if one rejects reason, whether outright or as a result of adopting
views which are incompatible with a rationally integrated worldview, what is
the alternative? The problem is that, once reason has been compromised, the
believer has no alternative but to retreat into his imagination, and to do so
under some other name, such as “divine revelation,” the “sensus
divinitatus,” faith, etc.
5. The failure of religious philosophy to
provide the mind with a sound metaphysical theory which securely and reliably
allows the adherent to distinguish between reality and imagination. Since
religion stands philosophically on the primacy of consciousness (see here
and here),
the believer in the religious worldview has no objective compass in determining
what is true and what is not true. The net affect is
that, because religion itself blurs reality and imagination into a monstrous
package-deal, the believer has been conned into sacrificing his ability to
distinguish reliably between reality and imagination. He most likely does not
realize this, and of course will resist admitting this to non-believers.
6. In Christianity, the bible requires
adherents to have child-like faith, and a prominent feature of child psychology
is an active imagination. I have already pointed this out in my blog With
Minds of Children, which I published in December 2005. In that posting I
quoted several relevant statements from the bible and from Christian apologist
John Frame.
For instance, Matthew 18:3-4 states:
Except ye be converted, and become as
little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever
therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in
the kingdom of heaven.
Similarly, Mark 10:15 states:
Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of
God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.
In such passages the New Testament clearly
and explicitly makes it a defining requirement for the believer to be “as a
little child.” A child is a person who is only beginning to learn about
reality, and has no self-consciously understood worldview per se. His time is
not spent tending to life’s needs, for these are typically taken care of by
parents. Instead, he spends a great deal of his time in play, where fantasy is
often the dominant mental counterpart to physical activity, whether it is role
playing, playing with dolls, toy automobiles, arts and crafts, etc. In this way
a child can be distinguished from an adult in the role his imagination plays in
his mental life. As is clear from the statements quoted above, the New
Testament makes it clear that this childlike mentality is the ideal persona
demanded of the believer.
Touching on this, presuppositional
apologist John Frame tells us that
Scripture never rebukes childlike faith;
indeed, Jesus makes such faith a model to be followed by adults (Luke 18:16).
One who requires proof may be doing it out of ungodly arrogance, or he may
thereby be admitting that he has not lived in a godly environment and has taken
counsel from fools. God’s norm for us is that we live and raise our children in
such a way that proof will be unnecessary. (Apologetics to the Glory of God,
p. 66)
The passage which Frame cites, Luke 18:16,
puts the following words into Jesus’ mouth:
"Suffer little children to come unto
me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God."
To say that the bible “never rebukes
childlike faith,” or that “Jesus makes such faith a
model to be followed by adults,” actually understates the position clearly
expressed in the bible. The bible requires childlike faith; it is not
simply a “model” to which adults are expected to conform. But Frame does make a
good point: the bible requires that believers “just believe” what it tells
them, and not to require proof. Also, the believer is to surround himself with
other believers, all of whom are to be encouraging each other to sustain their
belief in a shared fantasy, which is the essence of the “godly environment”
Frame has in mind here. Proof is the stuff of reason, but since the biblical
worldview is incompatible with reason, it is not surprising to see Christian
authorities urging believers to “raise… children in such a way that proof will
be unnecessary.” The active mind of a rational thinker is to be discouraged
through shame and guilt; believers are expected to believe on the power of
authoritative say so, period. This simply opens the door to the imagination as
the only alternative to reason available to the believer, for in the final
analysis there is no other alternative to reason. Notions like “divine
revelation,” the “sensus divinitatus,”
“faith,” etc., are merely euphemisms for what is in reality merely a reliance
on the imagination.
7. Intentional subordination of the world
which the believer perceives and in which he lives, to alleged personal forces
which he cannot perceive and which are indistinguishable from what is only
imaginary. This is how the religious program allows the believer to sustain
belief in the imaginary while continuing to exist in reality. He secretly
abides by reality’s terms in most affairs in life, all the while pretending
that there is some invisible personality working the controls of what he senses
and perceives lurking behind what he senses and perceives. One will always be
able to imagine some conscious being “back of” anything he sees and
touches, construing that imaginary being as the agent responsible for what he
sees and touches, whether benevolent or malevolent, or some monstrous
combination of both. “God’s thought,” says Van Til,
“is placed back of every fact” (Christian Theistic-Evidences, p.
88; quoted in Bahnsen, Van Til’s
Apologetic: Readings & Analysis, p. 378). The question is: who
places “God’s thought… back of every fact”? The obvious answer is: the
believer, in the context of his imagination. Wouldn’t it be just as easy to
suppose that “Blarko’s thought is placed back of every
thought,” where Blarko is an immaterial conscious
being which has no only begotten son? If we can imagine the Christian god “back
of” every fact, what stops us from imagining some other invisible magic being
“back of” every fact? Blank out.
8. Personification of imaginary beings
(they “hear” the believer’s prayers, “see” his actions, “know” his thoughts,
etc.) amplifies their impact on one’s emotional life. Personifying an imaginary
being, of course, is not difficult to do. All you need to do is imagine that
the imaginary being is personal, that it is aware of what you say, do, think,
feel, understand, etc., and presto: you have an imaginary
friend! And just by constructing such imaginations, and pretending to
oneself that they are real (a nasty habit enabled by a philosophy which
underplays or blurs the distinction between reality and imagination – see point
5 above), one has done all he needs to put himself in the position to be ruled
by such things. He does not know that his fantasies are real, but he believes
they are, and fears the imaginary consequences of questioning their reality.
That is the purpose of divine judgment and eternal hell in Christianity: to
compel the believer to take his fantasies of the Christian god seriously by
means of supernatural threats to his well-being. The impact of such fantasies
on one’s emotional life is, as Plantinga might put it, inscrutable. Much destruction
has been accomplished in the name of a god, Christian and otherwise, and the
primary engine behind this is the believer’s allowance of an imaginary being to
become larger than his own will and trump his better judgment, thus compelling
him to take those actions which put into motion policies which result in
life-threatening conditions. Until people start to understand this principally
and fully, we can expect more devastation of the human population on an
institutional scale.
9. Repetition is used in order to
reinforce artificially a self-imposed obsession with the supernatural in a
never-ending effort to convince oneself of something which in the end he can
never truly believe. The believer can never be fully satisfied in quelling his
doubts about the supernatural, especially when it comes to the Christian notion
of salvation. As long as the believer is alive, he hasn’t made it to heaven, so
the potential for even a modicum of salvation doubt is unquenchable, and a
modicum of doubt can go a long way in motivating a believer to try to convince himself and rid himself of such doubts. As the bible itself
says, “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump”
(Gal. 5:9). In essence, a little doubt can contaminate an entire set of
confessional doctrines. This is the primary reason why apologetics is a popular
avocation among believers today, especially when it comes to choice of internet
activity. The demand for repetition in reinforcing the believer’s obsession
with the imaginary beings he is supposed to worship, is the root cause behind
developing a church community. As the statement from John Frame quoted in point
6 above suggests, the believer is to seek out and install himself in “a godly
environment,” i.e., among fellow believers, such as in the formal congregation
of a church, in which a shared fiction can be positively reinforced communally.
The goal is for each individual to sustain belief in the shared fantasy, and
associating with others who likewise indulge in a similar fantasy is one of the
more direct ways of meeting this goal. A congregation not only provides
opportunity for the elements of the shared fantasy to be repeated and
emphasized through instruction and personal edification, but also allows for
the development of a community of surveillance which effectively keeps each
member in check and discourages defection from the shared fantasy. Fear of an
invisible magic being lurking “back of” everything one perceives is thus
reinforced through community involvement, thus exploiting the believer’s
unquestioned fear of other consciousnesses; if others believe it so strongly (a
pretense which each believer must do his best to sustain), then it must be
true.
10. We learn about “the supernatural” only
from other human beings, never from “the supernatural” itself. This is the case
even in stories in which a human being is said to have come in direct contact
with “the supernatural,” such as Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus.
This is a story which comes to us from other human beings. We do not learn
about the Christian god, for instance, from the Christian god itself
materializing before us and telling us about itself.
We have no alternative but to learn about it from sources which are
indistinguishable from sources which humans are known to have produced. Of
course, believers are tacitly encouraged to profess personal encounters with
the supernatural, which is what we find in cases like that of Canon
Michael Cole, who claimed that Jesus was standing in his immediate presence
(though apparently no one else present noticed even Jesus standing there beside
him!). Human beings are the primary source of our “knowledge” of “the supernatural,”
and when they point to other sources as testimony or evidence of “the
supernatural,” they are never direct contacts with the supernatural which we
can ourselves enjoy, but rather claims of religious experience and therefore
secondhand or further removed from our own experience, and we are expected to
accept these claims as if they were true, on another human being’s say so. How
does one reliably distinguish what we are being asked to believe from a
concoction of someone else’s imagination? Sadly, believers give us no objective
compass on such questions.
11. Conflicting versions of “the
supernatural” among those professing the same religious confession strongly
indicate a subjective nature to god-belief, especially given the failure of
those who clash with each other due to such conflicts to reach consensus.
Within Christianity alone, believers differ on the topic of salvation, the
nature of faith, the importance of the resurrection, the nature of the
atonement, the role of free will, predestination, hell, heaven, the “end
times,” the trinity, God’s love, God’s wrath, God’s judgment, prayer,
apologetic methodology, the continuation or cessation of miracles, etc., etc.
Where believers find themselves in conflict is in their conception of “the
supernatural.” In mundane matters, they find themselves in agreement: mountains
are composed of dirt and rock, rivers carry water, trees have roots, cars go on
streets, supermarkets sell milk, elected officials can be corrupt, pens have
ink, radios receive radio waves, etc. In areas concerning actually existing
things which can be perceived directly by means of the senses, there is nearly
universal agreement. But in areas which vary from one imagination to another,
there is a predominance of conflict and contradiction. The ages-long bitter
disputes on church doctrine between Catholics and Protestants, Calvinists and Arminians, pre-tribulationists
and post-tribulationists, etc., all have their origin
in the various imaginative understandings of the biblical text or other church
writings.
12. Apologetic appeals to psychological
phenomena as evidence of their god – e.g., the laws of logic, universals,
knowledge, “abstract entities,” and the like – intimating that their god shares
a similar ontological status, owe their attractiveness to the religious mind to
the imaginative nature of god-belief.
Consider the point I made in my 28 July
2009 comment of this
response to Chris Bolt:
The real reason why apologists will
associate mental or psychological phenomena with the supernatural,
is because “the supernatural” is in fact imaginary. So the association with
other aspects of mental activity is immediate. That is why the conceptual realm
will always be treated as a doorway to the supernaturalist’s
object of veneration. Look at Michael Butler’s comments:
“That the Christian worldview can account
for the principles of logic is readily demonstrable. Christianity allows for
abstract and universal laws. Abstract because the Christian worldview teaches
that more things exist than material objects. Thus it makes sense for there to
be abstractions.” (TAG
vs. TANG)
For Butler, providing an “account for the
principles of logic” is so easy: Just “allow… for abstract and universal laws”
and “teach… that more things exist than material objects.” Of course, it’s not
clear why other worldviews cannot do this (though we’re told that only
Christianity can). But is this really an “account for the principles of logic”?
Does this move our understanding any closer to the nature of logic as it
applies in human thought? I don’t think so. The underlying reasoning is: “logic
is immaterial, and so is God. If you use logic, then you grant the existence of
the immaterial. Therefore, you cannot deny God’s existence.” But logic is not
just “immaterial,” it is conceptual. Is “God” too a concept? I thought it was
supposed to be an independently existing entity. Presup
resists delving into a deeper understanding of logic, because the alleged
kinship between “God” and logic will dissolve. Logical principles, for
instance, are not conscious entities, nor do they
create existence. Etc.
The phenomena to
which such apologetic appeals are made, are not mind-independent phenomena. But
the Christian god is supposed to be a mind-independent entity.
13. Apologists often inadvertently admit
that their god-belief is in fact imaginative in nature. For instance, when
defending belief in “the immaterial,” a category to which the Christian god
purportedly belongs, Christian apologist Peter Pike writes:
When something “exists” it is. Note that
this does not mean that we are dealing with physical or material
existence. Indeed, immaterial existence also exists. (For evidence of this,
imagine a red ball. The red ball you have imagined does not have any physical
existence; it exists immaterially. Granted, one can argue that the immaterial
existence is based on a material brain, but the ball that is imagined is
not material. It does not exist physically anywhere.)
(This statement can be found in my blog Is the “Immaterial Actually” Imaginary? which I
published in June 2009. It is quoted from an internet paper which Pike has
since removed from his website under the philosophy index. The
paper containing the offending statement (the original link is here) has been
removed from public viewing, but to my knowledge the position he affirmed in
that paper has not been recanted.)
Notice what Pike presents as an example of
“the immaterial”: to consider an example of “the immaterial” he asks his
readers to “imagine a red ball.” Then he says that the red ball you imagine
“does not have any physical existence.” But, says Pike, this red ball “exists
immaterially.” Like the Christian god, the red ball we imagined “does not exist
physically anywhere,” since neither the red ball nor the Christian god is
physical. But just as we can imagine a red ball and Pike holds that “it exists
immaterially,” presumably the Christian god is supposed to “exist
immaterially,” since we can imagine it, too. It is interesting to note,
however, that theists cannot produce any examples of things which “exist
immaterially” which are not psychological in nature, whether it be a red ball which we are asked to imagine, or cognitive
phenomena such as logic, universals, moral principles, etc. In arguments for
their god’s existence theists apologetically liken their god to any of these
things, which are not examples of independently existing entities, and yet
their god is supposed to be an independently existing entity. Can apologists
produce one example of an independently existing entity whose existence is
indisputable and yet which “exists immaterially”? Not that I have seen.
As a final thought, while Christians tacitly
reserve the right to imagine their god as they determine, they resent anyone
who comes along and points out that their god is imaginary. An imaginary god is
not a god to be feared, and fear is the primary motivator of religion. It is,
primarily, because an imaginary god is not a fearsome god that Christians
resist admitting that their god is imaginary. It is not that they would lose
affection for their god, for a believer could still have affections for
something that is imaginary, as is shown to be the nature of the case in the
religious imagination of a god. What they don’t want is that others fail to
fear their god. They want everyone to “bow” to the god which
they construct and enshrine in their imaginations, and they want people to bow
to it because they fear it. If a man does not fear another man’s god, he is a
free man, enjoying the liberty to govern his life according to his own
judgment, according to terms which he defines according to his own judgments.
And this is what the religionist both fears and envies, and consequently
resents.
This is why non-believers are scorned so much: not because they supposedly deny
some cosmic truth, but because they retain their own free spirit.
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