Impossible Reality

Someone shared the following image on my Facebook feed:

It’s from the webcomic The Awkward Yeti, which features (amongst others) two recurring characters; the logical but frequently-stressed Brain, and the emotional and idealistic, but dippy and easily-distracted Heart.  It’s not one I regularly read, but I rather like it.

(And yes, I know there’s a massive typo in this one.  Yes, as a linguistic pedant, it has given me a nosebleed too.  Try and ignore it, and appreciate the comic.  Just try.  I know, but try.)

This particular one resonates with me on more than one level.  I’ve written more than once on the conflict between idealism and stark reality, and between cold rationalism and the more emotional and subjective nature of religious faith.  The quote at the top of this page, from which I’ve taken the name of my blog says something not dissimilar.

Atheists often accuse theists of denying reality, or ignoring evidence.  Well, obviously I happen to disagree, but even if they’re right, so what?  Do we live in a fantasy world?  Possibly.  The real world does not live up to my idea of what it ought to be, and, if any part of revelation or scripture is correct, of God’s idea of what it ought to be either.  Could God wave His hand and zap it into correctness?  Yes, of course.  But that would defeat the point.  We have been given the choice as to whether we would like to make the world into a Heaven or a Hell, and if I accept the world as it is, I am condoning it as it is as well.

We must acknowledge the state of the world; if we didn’t we wouldn’t know what needed changing, but that doesn’t mean accepting it.  We need to live in a fantasy world.  We need to live in a ludicrous, nonsensical dream-world in which it is possible to love without expecting anything, even love, in return, where people can forgive even when the one who wronged them doesn’t repent, where Grace is unearned, but offered freely, where hope is maintained in the face of hopelessness, where every single person can be, and wants to be, and is the best possible version of themselves, and never stops trying to be better than they are.

Impossible?  Unrealistic?  Sentimental, soppy, bleeding-heart, willfully naive leftie-liberal claptrap?  Probably.  But given the choice between trying (and I make absolutely no claims that I succeed even a tiny proportion of the time) to live my life as though I lived in that world, or living my live as though I lived in this, I know which I choose.  And if everybody tried to live in that impossible, unrealistic dream world, then it would no longer be impossible.  We would have built the Kingdom of Heaven.

Why do I always insist on believing in God, the Incarnation, the Redemption, in Goodness and Grace, in Faith, Hope and Love?  Because this ‘real’ world doesn’t meet with my fastidious tastes.

Theological Limericks

I have, I think, previously expressed my desire to become a famous hymnist.  However, having the innate musical gifts of a tone-deaf but nonetheless enthusiastic howler monkey, it seems like a plan doomed to failure.  I’ve had a stab at writing some lyrics based on an existing tune (after all, Fred Pratt-Green reused tunes, so it’s clearly allowed) but it still seems a little bit like cheating.  I really need someone to write tunes to which I can fit words, or vice-versa.  A Swan to my Flanders, a Sullivan to my Gilbert, a Bonnie to my Clyde- no, wait…

Anyway, since in the short term at least it seems that I am not destined to become the next Isaac Watts, I decided to try something a little less ambitious. I will attempt to exploit a significant and, to my knowledge, currently unfilled niche in the market and have a go at writing theological and biblical limericks.  Hey, we all need hobbies!  So, rather than being a Watts or a Charles Wesley directly, I shall attempt to be to them what Lear was to Shelley or Byron, only without cheating by just reusing the last word of the first line in the last.  I shall leave it to you, dear reader, to determine to what extent I have succeeded:

On the Incarnation

There once was a fellow called Jesus,

Who didn’t come down just to please us,

But to save us from sin,

though we just did Him in,

and through His dying He frees us.

On the Trinity

There’s Father and Son and the Spirit,

And though it seems complex to hear it.

Dad, Ghost and Son,

Are really all one,

Three Persons, One God; does that clear it?

On Faith and Works

We’re saved by our faith not our work,

But don’t think it means you can shirk.

They both are quite vital,

If claiming the title,

Of Christian and part of the kirk!

On the Nature of Christ

Jesus and God are the same,

One Light, one Substance, one Name.

All man and all holy,

All one, and all lowly,

Incarnate to save us He came.

On Grace

God likes to be rather lenient,

His Grace is both free and prevenient,

He wants none to fall,

So it’s offered to all,

A truth that’s both good and convenient.

The Greatest Commandment

Love God with your every part,

Your mind, soul, body and heart,

Then do unto others,

As sisters and brothers,

And if you should stumble, restart.

Communion

Though Jesus was tortured and bled,

And he died, he didn’t stay dead.

His grace is for any,

And though we are many,

We’re one, for we share in one bread.

Love Your Neighbour

Jesus taught for your spiritual health,

“Love your neighbour as much as yourself.

Put each other before,

Help the starving and poor,

And you’ll gain incorruptible wealth.”

John 14:6

Jesus was once heard to say,

“I’m the life, the truth and the way.

From the best to the worst,

All who follow won’t thirst,

I’ll be with them and there I shall stay.”

The Mocking of Christ

The crowd at the temple all jeered,

 “This Jesus is really quite weird.

It really is odd,

How he claims to be God!

His nonsense is worse than we feared.”

The Apostles

There’s Peter and Simon and John,

Two Jameses, and shall I go on?

Bart, Luke and Matthew,

Judas and Andrew,

Philip and Mark and we’re done.

Copyright Thomas Jones 2016

Choosing Free Will

This post may be a slightly rambling one. In it, I shall try and figure out some personal theology for your viewing plesasure, if that’s your sort of thing.   I’m afraid you’ll have to bear with me on it, or maybe go and read a webcomic or something instead.  It’s entirely up to you. 

My little theological crisis comes from two different sources: a Facebook discussion and a news article. 

The news article was regarding some psychologists who have supposedly proven that free will is merely an illusion.  It will not surprise you to know that I don’t accept this; the concept of free will is, after all, the basis for all human society.  All human interactions are based on the assumption that each individual is responsible for their actions, can be held accountable, rewarded or punished, and if free will is an illusion, and we are in reality running on predetermined (albeit incredibly complicated) rails, all of that falls down.  Even if we did accept it, we would have to act as though we didn’t, which would be hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty on a global scale, and simply not sustainable.

The concept of free will is also tightly bound up in Arminian and Wesleyan theology; the idea that we are able to freely accept or reject the offered grace of God, as opposed to the predestined and irresistible grace of Calvinist thought.  There are atheists who argue against free will, since it requires a non-physical element to a human being, which to them is impossible.  I consider it a rather self-defeating argument though.  After all, if they’re right, then I have no choice about whether I believe in the non-physical or not, and no ability to change my mind, and if they’re wrong, then I’m correct in my belief, and therefore have no reason to change my mind.

The Facebook discussion was with regards to the clash of rights of freedom of sexual expression and freedom of religious expression, and the fact that nowadays very often the former always seems to trump the latter, regardless of circumstances.  A friend of mine said that he thought that this was the correct way round, since people choose their religious beliefs, but don’t choose their sexuality.  I certainly agree that people don’t choose their sexuality, I’ve certainly never chosen mine, but I did object to the idea that people choose their religious beliefs.  I have never thought, “I think that from today I shall believe in God.”  Having given it much hard thought, and considered various points of view and my own experiences, I have come to believe that there is a God.  I didn’t decide to, it was a logical conclusion and in keeping with my own experiences.  I am as prone to confirmation bias and my own preconceptions and prejudices as anyone else, but it is the conclusion I have come to.  I do not choose to belief that 2+2=4, or that the sky is blue or that fencing is fun.  It is my experience that it is so.  I could claim to believe otherwise, even try and act as though I believed otherwise, but I would be lying to myself and everyone else.

You, intelligent and observant reader, will have spotted a potential conflict in my reasoning, and one that I have also realised.  If I do not choose to be a Christian, then how can I have exercised the free will that I believe allows me to accept the grace of God?

I suppose it’s possible that one could come to believe in God, and most of the other orthodox teachings of Arminian Christianity, but still not accept the prevenient grace of God, but then I would have to wonder if you really, genuinely believed them.  If you had pondered and thought and come to the conclusion that these teachings made sense, that you did believe that God had become incarnate, suffered and died and taken your just punishment on Himself, could you really then reject the offered salvation any more than you could, in a maths exam, do a sum and then right at the end, after all your careful working out, decide to give the wrong answer?  I mean, obviously you could, but under what possible circumstances would you do so, other than through a wilful and self-destructive stubbornness?

I have always resisted the traditional Wesleyan position that while humans exercise free will to choose to accept salvation, they are only able to do so because God gives them faith, while he does not do so for others.  To me, this is the same as saying that God chooses the damned and essentially the same as predestination, and I prefer the idea that every person comes to faith by themselves, or not as the case may be, making me at least a hemi-semi-Pelagian.  At least if I have to choose a heresy, it’s a good British one!

But where does that leave me?  Have I chosen to believe, or have I chosen because I believe?  Ultimately I suppose that belief doesn’t necessarily lead to the acceptance of grace, one can still choose or not, even if to me the conclusion seems almost foregone.  One can throw God’s gift back in His face, even desperately try to convince oneself that one’s conclusions are wrong, that there is no God, no choice, no free will, but it sounds like far more work than just accepting.

In writing this, it also strikes me that this is the kind of knotty, almost entirely pointless problem that gets in the way of the real Christian duties, an irrelevant question, the answer to which we won’t be certain of until after it ceases to be an issue.  A ‘how many angels can dance on the end of a split hair’ sort of thing.  Nonetheless, it is one that has occupied a fair amount of processing power on my walk into work.

Is free will an illusion?  Ultimately, I don’t think it matters, as long as we do what we are supposed to be doing, but in the end, I am forced to conclude that it is not.