IMO, Jeff - that’s a totally different scenario than living our lives as though WE were one of those trapped in darkness. Kind of a hard sell if we talk of the joy of the LORD and carry a dark, unhappy countenance with us into their dark places. I don’t think either writerlogos nor I are talking about superficial silliness.

…because there are people trapped in the darkness, and we have to go in and get them…

Telling us to avert our eyes from the darkness is not the answer…

I SO agree with you!

When I read about Ehrman, I think the same thing that I thought about that reporter. Phillippians 4:8 instructs Christians very clearly to think on what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. It’s OK to think about the problem of suffering, and read a book about it occasionally (although if you really want a good one, go straight to C.S. Lewis in _The Problem of Pain_). But when you *brood* on suffering and darkness, you will risk your faith. As Lewis points out, there is no such thing as the “collective weight” of suffering in the world for any of us. Only one person has ever felt that collective weight; the rest of us each feel only our allotted portion, and, no matter how horrible the life, that suffering is brief when we can look forward to the joy ahead.
I write not as an anti-intellectual–I have an advanced degree in the humanities–but as a former agnostic, and as someone who knows firsthand the dangers of brooding on the darkness. I feel compassion for Ehrman. He made a mistake, like many intellectuals, in thinking that we don’t need to exercise strict discipline in keeping light in our thoughts–even when engaged in scholarship, even in full awareness of the worst atrocities (which we are largely spared by living in a peaceful, wealthy country).

Thanks again.

I include these references not to contradict, for I am sure that you and many of your readers are intimately familiar with them. I include them in the hopes that those who are familiar with them may draw some comparisons and further illuminate the trajectories of these books that lead in such different directions. For those that are not familiar with them, may they be a blessing.

thanks for taking the time to blog this book. most pastors are usually too afraid to admit that they like a book/author that is almost an antithesis to orthodoxy. this book (and bart’s other books) have ment alot to my journey.

Indeed, it is modernity that failed to be humble, trying to make Objective Observer Gods out of humans. Modernity is truly vain to me — and to a host of others with far more qualification than I to pronounce it so. The critique of modernity, starting no later than Hume, has been in full swing for 120 years now. Lots of us consider the matter pretty well settled, the obit justifiably published. That number tends not to include, by the way, most pearly-gate, care-nothing-for-this-world Christians; you’re barking up the wrong tree there.

So, it’s your preoccupation with proof that strikes me as empty: I know it’s impossible, and I know the quest for it leads down the road to nihilism, and fecklessness, and uselessness. And to the heart of darkness. And even to Auschwitz.

That’s why I ask you to investigate epistemology and the philosophy of science (Richard, here, might well ask you to learn psychology) and face the problems that they pose for modernity. It’s in the face of what’s at the end of modernity’s road that I found myself looking for a new way to understand life. And there I found that Abraham’s people were telling me that they’ve been facing that vanity since long before modernity showed up.

In my previous post, I called that viewpoint an existential one; indeed, it was born in crises of existence for the Hebrew/Jewish people. I really prefer the term humanist, though that freaks out most of my brothers and sisters because they don’t know how I mean to use it. By it I mean human-centered, because the death of modernity has taught me that the beginning point for understanding the world is humanity, and this is so precisely because we are a humanity, and we cannot be anything else. By it I also mean humane, because I know that human suffering is as real as anything in the universe, and it’s impossible to ignore when you’re in it’s grip: you cannot help but feel the hurt.

Taking humanity seriously is non-negotiable for me in my attempts to understand the world. I’ve told you some about the road that has led me here. I hope that you can follow that road in part and see some of the merit in my present position.

I think you have an excellent point. Our understanding of the world we live in is not complete, even though humanity is understanding it more and more. I do, though, think it is amazing how much more we know today compared to what we knew 100 years ago. Julie, since you work in the medical profession, haven’t you ever seen medical knowledge do a few fantastic things? If you were sick, wouldn’t you seek medical help and expect at least something?

But about joy, where does anyone find joy? In their children’s smile. In a cold glass of water on a hot day. In Saturday evenings with friends. In the arms of a lover. In hatching plans for the future. Many Christians think that they are the only ones who are happy (strangely, most Christians that I know really aren’t happy) but the Christian worldview certainly has no corner on happiness. I think happiness/joy can be found in accepting your lot; accepting your place; accepting your destiny; accepting your death; accepting the universe as it appears and enjoying the moments pregnant with possibility. Crutches (faith in unreasonable things, hope in impossible futures, belief in mythology) does not, I don’t think, lead to happiness. Crutches just lead to sore underarms.

I hope this helps you understand.

I gotta tell you, your “existential approaches to the Christian faith” really has me confused. I guess I just don’t understand what you are saying. How can there be an existential approach to the Christian faith? (Does that have something to do with Kierkegaard? If it does then I’m totally lost b/c I’ve never understood him.) In a way I have to echo Brad, the previous poster.

About my use of “proving” being a “pretty poor understanding of science”: probably so. Maybe I could use the word “predicting” instead. As far as predicting future observations, the tools employed by science work by actually predicting future observations based on past observations. One goes to the doctor for medicine b/c science has proven or can predict what the chemicals in the medicine will do. And doctors can do that by using the tools of science. Faith can’t aspire to anything so grand. Jeff, your own “existential approaches to the Christian faith” might be a pleasing paradigm to you as far as your understanding of the world you inhabit, but it is ultimately hollow b/c it is based on Christian faith which cannot be used to predict or prove anything about the world we live in. My visions of the flying spaghetti monster are as certain as yours of whatever kind of god or reality you wrote about in your post.

And while “modernity may be vain” to you, it isn’t to everyone. Some of us actually enjoy and thrive by accepting our humble place in the universe without expectations of a pearly-gated after-life.

I don’t have a clue what you just said, but I like it!