Post-theistic God

[Leela]

Leela wrote:

It is Spong’s view (and mine) that the traditional understanding of these terms is at this point in history standing in the way of a deeper sense of our own spirituality for both believers and nonbelievers. Spong’s “personal encounter with God” is of primary importance to him. It is his ultimate concern, but he thinks that this encounter is not what you think it is. He thinks Jesus did not mean what you think he meant in talking about eternal life, divinity, and his indentification with the divine.

I few questions:

1.) What does it mean to say that traditional beliefs are standing in the way of “a deeper sense of our own spirituality?” Is Spong proposing a way to understand God or a way to understand our own spirituality? They’re different things. Is he talking about what God is objectively or our own subjective experience of him? And in what sense is the non-theisitic concept “deeper” than traditional understanding? What does the word “deeper” mean in this context. Is Spong arguing that people with more traditional experiences are somehow “shallower?” If so, why?

I don’t think I could answer this question without making unwelcome criticisms of theism.

In short, I would say that Spong would hold his conception of God as less inaccurate.

2.) I don’t understand what Spong means by a “personal” encounter with God if he thinks of God in essentially impersonal terms. If you have a personal encounter with someone, doesn’t that imply a person, or something with personal attributes, at the other end of the encoounter?

Spong wouldn’t say that God is impersonal. he would say that imposing such categories of personal/impersonal are a denial of God’s transcendence.

I couldn’t tell you what his encounters with God are like. I’ve never had a mystical experience myself though I am sure that others have them.

3.) For Spong to argue that traditional concepts are somehow standing in the way of a correct understanding of God “at this point in history” implies (a) that traditional concepts were once valid at some prior point in history, but (b) have become invalid today because many people today no longer think in those terms, but (c) traditional views could regain their validity in the future if enough people start thinking “theistically” again. In other words, “true” according to Spong seems to be whatever the consensus of opinion is at any moment in time. Isn’t that patently absurd?

We know more about just about everything than we did 2000 years ago. If there is anything to religion I would expect that our moral and spiritual knowledge must also progress.

4.) Spong argues that Jesus didn’t mean what we think he meant with respect to eternal life, divinity, identification with the divine, etc. Many Hindu writers (Swami Prahhavananda, Ravindra Ravi, Deepak Chopra, etc.) would argue that Jesus was an enlightened thinker who had achieved God consciousness. They would argue that anyone of us can do the same, because, ulimately, we are all God incarnate - that is, if we become enlightened, we realize ourselves all to be manifestations of the Atman. Eternal life is participating in that divine life. When we die, we merge back into the absolute, etc. Those are fascinating concepts and, espeically given the heavily materialistic bias of our times, I enjoy reading Hindu writers. But I don’t think that’s what Jesus was saying. And if Christianity has been based on such a collosal misunderstanding for 2,000 years, why perpetuate the Christian religion? Wouldn’t it be more honest to embrace Hinduism or the Vedanta Society?

Spong thinks that that is exactly what Jesus was saying. Why embrace some other religion when his own scriptures and rituals (in Spong’s view) point to the same reality as these Eastern religions?

 

[Ginkgo100]

My question is: could one be an authentic Catholic and not believe that God was a person? If we do believe that God is a person (which we obviously do) how do we reconcile how small our god seems to be portrayed in scripture and tradition?

No! There are a number of heresies here. The Church teaches clearly that God is one being in three person, and that Jesus Christ is both the person of God the Son and fully human. Our interactions with God are relational, i.e. we have a relationship with him as another person. For that matter, how could a being that is not personal create personal beings like angels and humans?

And what do you mean when you say our God is portrayed as “small”? What was small about the Red Sea miracle or the Transfiguration, or for goodness’ sake, the Resurrection and salvation of all mankind?

 

[DysonSphere]

The OP presents a very interesting view of Spong’s. I’d like to read some of his books. Is his book on Jesus at all worthwhile?

Freeman Dyson had a wonderful quote at his Templeton award: “I am content to be one of the multitude of Christians who do not care much about the doctrine of the Trinity or the historical truth of the gospels. Both as a scientist and as a religious person, I am accustomed to living with uncertainty. Science is exciting because it is full of unsolved mysteries, and religion is exciting for the same reason. The greatest unsolved mysteries are the mysteries of our existence as conscious beings in a small corner of a vast universe. Why are we here? Does the universe have a purpose? Whence comes our knowledge of good and evil? These mysteries, and a hundred others like them, are beyond the reach of science. They lie on the other side of the border, within the jurisdiction of religion.”

as well as:

“A few weeks ago I was attending Mass in St. Stephen’s church in England. In Princeton I am presbyterian, but in England I am catholic because I go to Mass with my sister.”

No! There are a number of heresies here…

The sort of Christianity I might accept would be seen by you, I’m sure, as heretical. If defining a group by so much dogma and declaring heresies outside is what certain religious wish, they should be free to have it; I don’t think such groups will survive much longer (though I’m sure people were saying the same thing 2000 years ago; a relatively short time, but who knows what the future holds?).

 

[simmslaw]

I am convinced that Archbishop Spong has, like so many modern theologians, lost his faith. His proposition is but yet another attempt of man to create god in his image and likeness to the ignorance of the fact and promise that we are created in the image and likeness of God. In what has become far too common, biblical exegesis and scholarship has devolved to a merely scientific pursuit in which faith is optional and the reverence and awe which Scripture is due, is tossed out the window along with the understanding and necessary belief that God is far greater than we can ever grasp or contemplate. The concept of a god who is merely “being itself” is not Thomistic nor does that concept share any scholastic or theological common ground with Aquinas. It is, rather, a facile and shallow retreat from the concept of ipsum esse subsistens. He might as well have likened God to “the Force.” No, this is pantheistic new age drivel, plain and simple.

 

[edwest2]

Further, there is the additional desire to create a wall between science and religion. Boredom appears to be the only problem visited upon the agnostic or nontheist. Since they have nothing else to do, science will keep them occupied.

My point it is: There is a God. You will meet Him when you die, regardless of what you may be thinking now. I don’t write this to frighten anyone but to get the message to those who think that knowing more today as opposed to 2,000 years ago really doesn’t mean much. We can read literature written 2,000 years ago and it still moves us. Why? The basic human being has not changed.

Morality does not evolve. Stealing is exactly as wrong today as it was 2,000 years ago. It sickened me in the 1980s to hear that taking cocaine was “fashionable.” Just doing whatever the ‘beautiful people’ did was what you should do. Fashions change, hairstyles change, but the basic human being does not.

God bless,
Ed

 

[headsmith]

A “post-theistic God” is a contradiction, not an oxymoronic trope. What people mean when they use this term is “theism as defined by some sect or other,” like the “God is dead” movement of the '50’s or the “disbelief” movementof the '20’s. Such uninformed fads have cycled through periodically throughout the past.

 

[Spengler47]

A few comments.

I’m not sure I follow Leela when she writes that attributing personal characteristics to God would limit his transcendence. Surely, if Spong describes himself as a non-theist and a pantheist, he believes in God’s immanence, rather than his transcendence. Is that not so? A theology that stresses pure transcendence would be a theology more like Karl Barth’s, who argued against natural theology and believed that we could know God only as he disclosed himself in revelation through Jesus Christ.

I share Dysonsphere’s admiration for Freeman Dyson as a scientist, but I’m not sure I can agree with Dyson aon theology. Certainly the ultimate reality of God does exceed our ability to express that reality fully in writing. As Dante wrote in the final Canto of the Divine Commedy, “here my imagination failed me.” Philosophy can only take us so far. I think the same is true of science. On the other hand, I can’t agree with Dyson if he believes that the doctrines of the trinity or the incarnation are unimportant, or simply a matter of subscribing to what seems believable at the moment. A Presbyterian today, a Roman Catholic tomorrow, something else the next day? Is Dyson pulling our legs?

I think Spong makes a mistake when he tries to draw an analogy between science and religion, arguing that religious thought should be seen as progressive and cummulative in the same way science is. Science deals with the material world; religion with an ultimate reality outside the realm of science. I’m not arguing that we we learn from science should have no effect on what we think religiously, but I also don’t think that science is the ultimate arbiter.

 

[DysonSphere]

A “post-theistic God” is a contradiction, not an oxymoronic trope. What people mean when they use this term is “theism as defined by some sect or other,” like the “God is dead” movement of the '50’s or the “disbelief” movementof the '20’s. Such uninformed fads have cycled through periodically throughout the past.

Yes, this is quite possible. It may be, alternatively, that these so-called “fads” are simply failed attempts for a large progressive Christian population to find a name for what they believe. Spong’s attempt may also fail, especially since it seems to be a conflicted resurrection of western Pantheism.

A new language needs to be made for the new Christianity.

 

[Leela]

A few comments.

I’m not sure I follow Leela when she writes that attributing personal characteristics to God would limit his transcendence. Surely, if Spong describes himself as a non-theist and a pantheist, he believes in God’s immanence, rather than his transcendence. Is that not so? A theology that stresses pure transcendence would be a theology more like Karl Barth’s, who argued against natural theology and believed that we could know God only as he disclosed himself in revelation through Jesus Christ.

I’ve tried to correct this assertion a couple times on this thread a;ready. Spong’s conception of God is panenthism rather than pantheism, so his conception of God, like the theist conception, is of a transcendent and immanent God. The difference is mostly about the conception of God as a person (or three persons).

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

A “post-theistic God” is a contradiction, not an oxymoronic trope. What people mean when they use this term is “theism as defined by some sect or other,” like the “God is dead” movement of the '50’s or the “disbelief” movementof the '20’s. Such uninformed fads have cycled through periodically throughout the past.

History demonstartes that religious “fads” do tend to die, but there are enough of them that a substantial number tend to live on in each generation and be passed on to the next. In the furture, I think we can expect more religious diversity rather than increased conformity to existing theologies. Would you agree? Do you expect increasing consensus or increasing diversity of religion in the future?

 

[tonyrey]

History demonstrates that religious “fads” do tend to die, but there are enough of them that a substantial number tend to live on in each generation and be passed on to the next. In the furture, I think we can expect more religious diversity rather than increased conformity to existing theologies. Would you agree? Do you expect increasing consensus or increasing diversity of religion in the future?

History demonstrates that a persecuted minority like the early Christians become more united and dedicated…

 

[Spengler47]

Predicting the future is always problematic. People, including the most highly sophisticated “futurologists” always assume that, if you take present trends and extrapolate them forward, you can predict the future. But history is full of unexpected twists and turns. Very few people living in 1900 could have predicted World War I, the collapse of the monarchical system in Europe, the seizure of power in Russia by the Bolsheviks, or the collapse, within 50 years of the European colonial empires. During the 1930’s numerous highly regarded writers argued that democracy was finished and that either Communism, Fascism or Nazism was the “wave of the future.” (On that subject, George Orwell’s essay on the political theories of James Burnham is significant.) Even as recently as the 1970’s, you had leading commentators arguing that Eurocommunism was the wave of the future. Twenty years later, the USSR collapsed. In he early 1990’s, a lot of people in the US worried about losing our economic leadership to Japan. Now Japan is mired in economic problems and we worry about losing out to the Chinese or Indians. Five years ago, everyone worried about global warming; now we’re wondering if the global warming challenge is as real as we thought. Sixty years ago, religion was on the upswing in the US and mainline churches were packed. Today, religion is at a low ebb. But that could change again.

Clearly Spong’s ideas have appeal for a certain group of readers. But is Spong the “wave of the future,” or is Spong a short-term, passing phenomenon? My guess is that, 20 years from now, his books will be out of print and he will be completely forgotten. But that’s only my guess.

 

[Leela]

History demonstrates that a persecuted minority like the early Christians become more united and dedicated…

This is true. There is a oft repeated historical move toward fundamentalism that happens when there is a challenge to a religious group. A modern example is the birth of Christian Fundamentalism during the Monkey Trial. But even in such examples, specifying exactly what a group is to believe and makimng small differences in doctrine out to be important is likely to result in speciation–more distinct groups with subtle nuanced differences that start to consider themselves as distinct from one another in important ways where such differences were previously not thought to be important. So there is less unity rather than more. There is more unity withing such specialized groups, but also more different groups.

 

[NonNobisDomine]

Classic enlightenment liberalism. It is really atheism.

I would argue that Spong shares nothing in common with modern enlightenment thinking. If we had to classify Spong, I would think we would have to call him post-modern. He has a complete distrust in strong intellectual statements about God. All of Christian theology operates by means of an analogy. In an analogy you have something which is similar, and an element which is dis-similar. Instead of maintaining a Catholic balance between saying that God is completely other (and therefore we cannot know the nature of God) and yet that he closer to us than we are to ourselves. He is a classic protestant theologian who does not accept the analogy of being (Barth), and as such his project is doomed from the start.

I commend Bishop Spong for his efforts to make Christianity more relevant to modern society, but like most people here, I think he has gone too far. The ordering principle of the universe (logos) has revealed himself to be a person. Spong seems to be worshiping the god of metaphyics. The “ground of all being,” is the metaphysical name for God. He attempts to take revelation and place it within the a priori categories of metaphyics. In a sense he completely contradicts what it is that he sets out to do. He firmly contends that all theological speculation is just that speculation. He contends that we make idols out of our conceptions of God, but yet he prefers to worship the idolotrous god of metaphyics.

Although I feel that he ultimately fails, I do think that he is being more faithful to Christianity than most of you. When I read Spong (and I have actually read him), I read a man who is allowing reason access to the holiest doctrines of our faith. As Catholics we give lip service to a unity of faith and reason. We say that nothing in science will contradict our faith, because they both have the same author. But we generally do not have the guts to allow reason to operate within certain dogamas. As soon as someone allows reason access to things such as the personhood of God and the historical Christ, we get nervous and start to throw around names. When we have no real arguments against someone, it is easy to label him a heretic or a non-authentic christian.

In a certain sense most Catholics are throughly fideistic. Granted, I think that Spong is on the other extreme. He tends to capitulate everything to modern science. Instead of allowing faith to critique reason when necessary, reason becomes the new “assurance of things hoped for.” In this sense, Spong has more belief in reason than in faith. Being somewhat fideistic, we react violently against this. Reason has no place in my faith! Certain things are just not up for debate! Instead of having faith seek understanding, attempting to make the esoteric truths of the faith relevant to todays society, we are happy worshiping our dogmatic idol. Although we may recognize how dogma has evolved in the past, we all tend to think that the evolution has now stopped and everything is satisfied.

We can learn from Spong’s boldness. He may be wrong! So was Galieo, but he can help usher in an authentic Gestalt shift.

 

[Spengler47]

Christian churches in the Middle east have survived for centuries, despite Muslim oppression. They’ve done it by maintaining a strong sense of Christian community and by staunch commitment to traditional doctrines, beliefs and practices.

While Chrisitianity has fared poorly in Europe and North America since the 1960’s, the Christian religion is growing exponentially in Africa and Asia. But the Christianity that is growing there is very traditional Christianity. It will be interesting to see, as the Muslim presence grows in Europe, whether Europeans will begin to seek out their Christian heritage again. If they do, there could be a move back to traditional Christianity in Europe.

 

[Leela]

Clearly Spong’s ideas have appeal for a certain group of readers. But is Spong the “wave of the future,” or is Spong a short-term, passing phenomenon? My guess is that, 20 years from now, his books will be out of print and he will be completely forgotten. But that’s only my guess.

Spong would admit that his books will not be read. Nevertheless, he expects that the ideas he talks about will still be talked about. He predicts that looking back on his work from the perspective of he future they will seen as not radical enough.

 

[Spengler47]

I think NonNobisDomine accurately describes Spong as a postmodernist. Probably his influence will be as enduring as postmodernism’s. How long will postmodernism last? Will it prove to be an enduring contribution to western thought or is it simply an academic fad of the late 20th century? I’m inclined to see it as a fad, but time will tell.

One of the leading Anglican theologians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Charles Gore, Bishop of Oxford, wrote a three volume Reconstruction of Belief, which he published in 1922. I think Gore could best be described as a moderately liberal Anglo-Catholic, open to biblical criticism but, as I recall, basically orthodox in theology. Gore was very erudite and a subtle thinker, yet his books are now out of print. How many people, other than specialists in Anglican theology, even read Gore today? As I recall, he was very concerned with dealing with the challenges posed by another philospher, Arthur Pringle Pattison. And how many people today remember Pattison? I doubt if either Gore or Pattison exerts much influence today.

Spong assumes that his ideas, even if his books are no longer read, will be the “common coin” of Christian thinking 50 or a 100 years from now. I can’t say that couldn’t happen, but I really think it’s unlikely. Spong is assuming that the trends of today will persist into the future, and the future generations will have the same beliefs, needs, preoccupations, etc. as people living today. I very much doubt that.

 

[DysonSphere]

Spong would admit that his books will not be read. Nevertheless, he expects that the ideas he talks about will still be talked about. He predicts that looking back on his work from the perspective of he future they will seen as not radical enough.

This may be true. I add that “radical” is not necessarily identical to "true’.

 

[edwest2]

Speaking as a writer who’s helped shape alternate futures for fiction, it is a certainty that most predictors of the future are wrong. Look at the global financial crisis brought on by the purely by the numbers people on Wall Street. What? They weren’t paying attention? According to a person I know who works in the mortgage business, the motivation was greed. Something you will not see plotted on any future chart of progress.

Even if there was an alternate reality run by mathematicians, scientists and pure non-God believing rationalists, guess what? There would still be quasi-religious groups following the leading expert or group of experts. Anf if a new group of experts discovered some “better” way, people would flock to them. Just like Marxists and Capitalists, people would pick and choose which group appealed to them more, based on whatever criteria they think is acceptable.

So, whoever happened to be the ‘flavor of the month’ would have the most followers, only to be deposed by a new group with “new” or reconstituted “old” ideas a short time later. As with my greed example, it’s obvious that humans are not just mechanisms.

God bless,
Ed

 

[Leela]

A new language needs to be made for the new Christianity.

I agree. Spong or Eckhart Tolle or Depak Chopra might say, until we have new poets to create this new language, we can still listen to the old words with new ears. It sounds to me like this is what you are trying to do. I am ambivalent myself. While we CAN listen with new ears, when we start to use old words in new ways, we will be more often than not misunderstood. This is why the Catholics here will not even recognize Spong as talking about God at all.

I also have the concern that by keeping the God-talk going he is perpetuating within the broader culture what the two of us my see as conceptions of the unknown that have outlived whatever benefit for us they might have had. In other words, perhaps we would like to see less God-talk since God-talk tends to be so divisive. On the other hand, it may be possible to just have better God-talk while keeping such talk going. I’m not sure what the answer is. Maybe some of each? Does this better God-talk of a Spong or a Chopra lend cover against critcism to those worse forms of God-talk such as that of a Pat Robertson? If so, the answer is to try to reduce the amount of God-talk altogether. But if new and better God-talk reduces bad God-talk, then we may have common cause with Spong and Chopra. What do you think?

Best,
Leela