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Religion as a dimension in man's spiritual life
Robinson
This brings us, lastlly, to the third charge, that God is morally intolerable. Again, it is a charge that stands. A being who 'sends' the worst into the lives of individuals or who stands aside to 'permit' it is a God who must die. But that is precisely what the Christian faith proclaims happened at Calvary. The God who could have sent 'twelve legions of angels' and did not is exposed as the God who failed even his Son. The obituary read by the atheist is valid, even if sometimes shrill.Nothing in the Christian faith implies the rehabilitation of that God. Yet the Christian, as he looks back on the Cross from the other side of the Resurrection, sees not a world without God at its border but a world with God at its center. What it means to believe in love as the final reality is to be discerned not in the absentee controller who allows the suffering but in the crucified transfiguring figure who bears it. The New Testament 'answer' to the problem of evil is given, not majestically out of the whirlwind but agonizingly out of the darkness. As Bonhoeffer saw, in that situation 'only a suffering God chelp'. The God of the Christian faith, who alone can be 'our' God, can ultimately be revealed and responded to only as love hich takes responsibility for evil - transforming and victoriously.
For men to adjust to life in a world with that as its central reality is no intellectual exercises: it is, in Bonhoeffer's words again, to 'range themselves with God in his suffering'. That is the test he saw distinguishing Christians from unbelievers. And even among professed unbelievers there may at the point of dereliction, where the choice of our ultimate allegiance stands forth most starkly, be many who find that they cannot rail.
'For Christians, heathens alike he hangeth dead.' Such is the reality Bonhoeffer recognized as the common presuposition of our age -- replacing what he called 'the religious premise' atheists and Christians start there together. And on their walk from the tomb, sharing the disenchantment of other more facile hopes, the dialogue can begin.
Summary
Creative element of human spirit vs divine revelation. Lasting
quality of human spirit vs effect of conditions.irrational and compulsive affirmations or negations
religion != element of man's spiritual life? gift. cannot seek out god.
diversity of religions. creation of human spirit
religion - relation to divine beings. beings - external. god -
thing beside other things?dimension of depth in all of its functions
religion is not a separate area
tragic separation depth in the totality of the human spiritpoints to the ultimate, infinite, unconditional
this is what you are willing to die for passionate longing for ultimate reality science
we can, however, reject the _symbols_
narrower sense of religion
estrangement myth, cult, symbols secular/profane splitdepth, usually covered
awe inspiring. ultimate meaning. self forgettingUltimate concern
Validity of depth
We speak of the gravity of situations.
Weight
God is personal
... but the images merely point to the
I find
References
Ultimate concern
Religion as a dimension in man's spiritual life
| A | C | Write atheist's point of view - page 2 (2002.08.31) |
| A | C | Write believer's point of view - page 3 (2002.08.31) |
| A | C | Write atheist's counterview - page 4 (2002.09.02) |
| A | C | Format references - page 5 (2002.09.04) |
| A | C | Revise paper (2002.09.05) |
| A | C | Print reflection paper (2002.09.05) |
| A | X | Decide which article I want to reflect on (2002.08.19) |
| A | X | Review of related literature (2002.08.24) |
| A | X | Summarize article (2002.08.31) |
I think I'm going to focus on Robinson's article, "Can a truly contemporary person not be an atheist?" I find it more understandable - more true to my own experience. And perhaps it can give me some hope.
John A. T. Robinson is the author of Honest to God. Wrote The New Reformation? with a chapter titled "Can A Truly Contemporary Person Not Be An Atheist?"
"Atheism In Our Time", Robert J. McCracken
Theology Today. Vol 23, No. 3. October 1966. http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/oct1966/v23-3-article1.htm:McCracken Last visited: August 23, 2002More radical Christian thinkers: Paul van Buren, William Hamilton, Thomas J. J. Altizer.
Vatican II Rufus Jones once wrote a book which he called The Church's Debt to Heretics.
"In what sense is he alive for us?"
They deny the existence of God but nothing is plainer from their writings that they are obsessed by him, as we are not.
Practical atheism
Theoretical atheism
Doubt doubt before you doubt faith.
"Exploring faith in a changed world", Radical Faith
http://homepages.which.net/~radical.faith/subjects/atheism.htm Last visited: August 22, 2002Atheists' arguments are on no weaker ground than believers' are.
If it's your experience that God exists, I must acknowledge the validity of your inner truth.
Emil Fackenheim: Faith in this sense can "never be destroyed by tragedy, but only tested by it." Paul Tillich and Bishop John Robinson. Established by Paul Tillich. God is the "Ground an epth of Being" who is "out there" as the sustaining basis of the universe and "in here" as a divine personal presence. Radically transcendent, versus inner experience
Honest to God
Our images of God are interpretations we make, an we must take full responsibility for them anthropomorphism
Robert Funk (Honest to Jesus)
Martin Buber, I and Thou
D. Z. Phillips in Faith After Foundationalism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 102-106 raises specific objections to Van Til's a
Bertrand Russell, Why I am Not a Christian
Don Cupitt
Robinson draws heavily upon Tillich
depth
What do I believe?
What don't I believe?
How does that relate to Robinson's article?
Depth
So if
I find myself not alone in searching for meaning.
I have lost my belief in the symbols that
Radical theologians
In his essay entitled "Religion as a dimension in man's spiritual life", Paul Tillich reintroduces the idea of God as the depth and ground of our being. He highlights the tragic estrangement and narrowing of religion into a sphere separate from our daily lives, but leaves us with
"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt. *.It is the state of being concerned about one's own being and being universally. "
"If we define religion as the state of being grasped by an infinite concern, we must say: Man in our time has lost such infinite concern."
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End:
Review
Tips
Sit down and smile. Don't shout.Religious experience - Antoine Vergote
Key insight
The religious experience is the encounter with the Other, the sudden opening of our minds to the immediate presence of the sacred. It is something that you don't create; it happens to you. Vergote says that a religious experience is an encounter with the divine. During a religious experience, we become aware of the sacred through symbols that are human and terrestrial. In this encounter, we experience such contrasting feelings - tremendum and fascinosum. We are afraid and in awe, but at the same time we wonder and want to draw near.Relationship of faith with reason
Reason, if it ends with the symbols and does not open itself to that which lies _beyond_ the symbols, is a reason that can never be reconciled with faith. A faith that relies on dogma or ritual without being the product of reflection on actual experience is a faith that cannot go hand in hand with reason. Likewise, it is all too easy to project reason or faith beyond symbols in an incorrect manner because of the ambiguities in religious experiences (hence the danger of the sacred blending with the cosmic, sexual, or demonic).However, Vergote says that the religious experience and the feelings of awe, wonder, dependence, creatureliness, and gratitude come from our own subjective reflection about our experience. In that case, reason - our reflection on our genuine experiences - leads to faith, and faith to reason.
Faith is necessary for you to be open to the sacred realities behind the symbols.
How has this affected your life?
The sacred and the profane
key insight
the sacred manifests itself symbols are sacred because of the sacred reality they manifest. absolute reality in contrast to unreality nonhomogeneity break in space and timerelationship between faith and reason
A reason-dominated world, emptied of religious symbolism, is a world that is 'opaque and exhausting' - it reveals no meaning,it is unreal.
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