"One may ask," says today's columnist Andrew Porter, "in a philosophical vein, whether people are right to embrace the pains of life as good-bearing, without thereby asking for proof. Peter Berger once posed the question in the form of the comfort that a mother gives to a child who has awakened from a nightmare. He asked, in A Rumor of Angels (1990), whether the mother who comforts her child with the words, "Everything's OK" is telling the truth or not. Is the mother lying? Is everything all right? Everything?! Will the child be OK? How can the mother know? What can she do, in face of all that can go wrong? What on earth could the mother really mean? She knows that a bus could hit the child, and then it's not all right."

But does the mother's statement about the status "everything" differ qualitatively from many of our statements about the nature of non-threatening aspects of our world? Or is what appears to be a moral difference (i.e., Berger's question "Is the mother lying?") due to the existential need for comfort and response?

To this, Porter continues, by saying:

"So what can we say stands behind the faith that it is 'all right?' That the pains of life bear blessing? It is not something within the world. It is not something 'outside' the world, because the world could then just be extended to include that thing that was formerly outside of it. Perhaps we could just borrow the vernacular, and say, 'That's The Way Things Are.' That's what people say when they get tired of you pestering them and asking 'why?'
questions without end. The Way Things Are is not a thing in the world, nor is it outside the world. It is not a feature of the world, though it is immanently present in the world."

But the reassurance that "all is well" is often a statement of faith, and is God to be consider merely a part of "the way things are" or the originator of "the way things are"? For, as Porter observes:

"To ask whether the God who acts 'really' acts, at least in everyday language, is to load the word 'really' with a very naturalistic freight. To demand that God 'really' act in a way describable in the language of physics is to ask...to return to naturalistic theology."

Read on to explore what this implies.

Today's column is the final installment in a four-part series comprised of chapters taken from the book By the Waters of Naturalism: Theology Perplexed Among the Sciences (Eugene, Oregon, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001: ISBN 1-57910-770-2) by Andrew Porter. The series began on Metanexus: Views 2003.02.11., continuing on Metanexus: Views 2003.02.13. and 2003.02.18., and in these excerpts from Porter's book we brought together two themes that we have been exploring this month on Metanexus: (1) the place of humans in the universe: is it natural? And (2) what is the nature of divine action, a theme that is being explored in a three-part series by Ilia Delio also running on Metanexus: Views on consecutive Wednesdays, having so far been post on 2002.02.12. and 2002.02.19.

Today's author, Andrew Porter, is an adjunct faculty member in philosophy of religion at The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA.

--Stacey E. Ake

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Subject: By the Waters of Naturalism, Part 4/4 From: Andrew Porter Email: <app@jedp.com>

Excerpts from Chapter 9: Your Move 9.1 How to Clean an Oven

Our constant theme has been objectivity and subjectivity in naturalistic questions, and the appearance that one is caught in a dilemma between them in history. Instead, responsibility is what people do in history. The spectre of subjectivity has nevertheless loomed over life in history. I would like to sharpen that apparent threat, though not to induce abject panic in the reader. Again and again we have come against the question whether the pains of life bring blessings or instead are barren. The believer was left without visible means of support except the testimony of lives lived trusting in such blessing.

It gets worse. There are more ways than just one to do that. The Talmud is a collection of writings dating from the second century of the Common Era to perhaps the sixth or eighth. The core of it is the Mishnah, a collection intermediate in size between the Common Documents and the New Testament; not very big. The commentary on the Mishnah, called the Gemara, is much bigger. Together, they are the size of a small encyclopedia. It has been the shaper of Rabbinic Judaism, the general instructions for how to continue after the loss of the Temple in 70 CE.

There is a story in the Talmud, a dispute about how to clean an oven. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus is on one side of the dispute, and Rabbi Joshua (and all the other rabbis) are on the other side of the dispute. Eliezer is in a minority of one. The particulars of cleaning the oven don't matter.

The story makes many points along the way, and perhaps the simplest thing is to note them as it moves along. (The story is in Baba Mezi'a, folio 59b, pp. 154-155 in the Neusner translation.) Eliezer marshals every conceivable argument, to no avail. So he says to the others, "If the law accords with my position, this carob tree will prove it. The carob tree was uprooted from its place by a hundred cubits -- and some say, four hundred cubits." The other rabbis are unimpressed. Eliezer tries again. He appeals to a stream of water. It flows backwards. They are unimpressed. He says that if he is right, the walls of the schoolhouse are to fall down. The walls totter. The rabbis are unimpressed. Rabbi Joshua tells the walls to butt out, and they stop at a forty-five degree angle, torn between respect for one rabbi and respect for the other. (All this, by the way, is a misguided attempt to find answers in nature for an essentially historical problem, precisely the mistake we want to escape from in this book.)

Then Eliezer appeals to Heaven. A voice from Heaven says,

"What business have you with R. Eliezer, for the law accords with his position under all circumstances!" But Rabbi Joshua retorted, "It is not in heaven (Dt. 30.12)." What comes next seems odd to our ears: the Torah is given on earth, and so it is wrong to appeal to Heaven. "After the majority you are to incline."

This is a strong statement. It is also surprising -- and so it needs emphasis of the clearest sort. Rabbi Nathan asks Elijah what God thought of these proceedings. "What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do at that moment?" Elijah replied that God laughed with joy, and said, "My children have overcome me, my children have overcome me!" (Baba Mezi'a, folio 59b, Babylonian Talmud vol. 21B, pp. 154-155, Neusner trans.). Human religious communities have the authority to dispose of their own affairs. God agrees, even when he doesn't agree. The English translation continues to the effect that the rabbis took a vote and excommunicated Rabbi Eliezer. The footnote in the Soncino translation says that the text in the original actually reads that they "blessed" him -- and that blessed here means excommunicated. This story serves multiple purposes. There is more here than just a grant of discretionary authority to human congregations, though that is the most obvious point. It is also in the New Testament, for those who care, in the words "what you bind on earth is bound in heaven," etc., in "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us," and in "the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." (Matthew 18.18, Acts 15.28, Galatians 5.1). The principle is the same.

But back to the footnote.

The passage in the Mishnah that this story comments on and illustrates is as follows:

Just as a claim of fraud applies in buying and selling, so a claim of fraud applies to spoken words. One may not say to [a storekeeper], "How much is this object?" knowing that he does not want to buy it. If there was a penitent, one may not say to him, "Remember what you used to do." If he was a child of proselytes, one may not say to him, "remember what your folks used to do!" For it is said, And a proselyte you shall not wrong nor oppress (Ex. 22.20). (Baba Mezi'a 4.10, vol. 21B, p. 151, Neusner trans.).

It is not just an injunction to be fair in transactions, but more generally, an injunction to tact and forbearance with other people all the time. The conclusion that I would like to draw can be sketched only in outline, but the reader is entitled to know what is involved in conducting a world-affirming historical religion. There are more ways than just one to conduct a covenant. There were more ways than just two in Judaism of the first century, though only two survived. One became the )rthodox Judaism of the Synagogue, the other became the Church.

There is (and was) a responsible liberty of interpretation in the conduct of a covenant. I would rather not repeat the sorry history of how this principle has been rejected on both sides by the Church and the Synagogue subsequent to their birth out of the disasters of the first century. (This is in a dull work called Elementary Monotheism.) Instead, it is enough to observe the fatal mistake. It was the assumption, made on both sides, that only one daughter religion could legitimately inherit from the ashes of Second Temple Judaism. Each had its apologetic strategies for disinheriting the other.

I would like to suggest a different approach. From the point of view of the Church (from which, if not for which, I can speak), the existence of another Exodus tradition is living witness to one's own responsible liberty of interpretation in the conduct of a covenant. The mere existence of the other Exodus tradition makes it obvious that to continue the tradition at all is an act of interpretation, and one for which human interpreters are obliged to take responsibility. We return to the issue we began with, the choice between objectivity and subjectivity, or responsibility in history. Some things can be observed at this point.

The existence of the other tradition is an instance of exposure, albeit not exposure of sin. It is exposure of responsibility, and that can be painful enough, simply because it creates a real anxiety for members of the exposed tradition. In other words, you can't get away with thinking that God made your religion, but other people invented their religions. You're just like the other people, you invented your own religion. What is said for the Church can be mirrored with some changes for the Synagogue. But exposure is exposure, and we are committed, if the reader is with me so far, to embracing exposure as something that brings grace and freedom. Because the existence of another Exodus tradition is exposure, Christianity needs Rabbinic Judaism to be strong, healthy, and different.

Continuing Judaism with the rabbis in the Synagogue is part of the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us all free, and Christians should respect that freedom.

9.2 No Shadow or Turning

So it appears as if life in history has more difficulties than just the pains of history. It is impossible to know what happened, because the interpretation of human actions is always open. It is impossible to know how to continue a covenant into the future. In fact, you can make up a covenant any way you like!

Or so it appears.

Naturalism has unambiguous answers to all questions, or at least to all the questions that it can see. There are no uncertainties, things are objective. And from the perspective of naturalism, thinking in historical terms is hopelessly subjective.

Things appear differently from the perspective of one who under- stands history. Naturalistic thinking makes "objective" things that are in fact human choices, the results of human interpretation. And objectivation relieves the human interpreter of responsibility. The entire project of locating acts of God in particular physical events, and calling those events the causal part of the acts of God is a case in point, and it is the example with which we started this book. Once the acts of God are objectivated (here, in quantum indeterminacy), the human acts by which they are ascribed to events are hidden, covered up. The act of interpretation is also an act of faith, and once hidden, the believer is off the hook, and doesn't have to take responsibility for it. But we saw two drawbacks in this project. Objectivation in physical indeterminacy always involves cause laundering, and there is no way to tell which quantum fluctuations are acts of God and which ones are just quantum fluctuations. From the perspective of naturalism, that decision is hopelessly subjective, and the proponents of naturalistic theology hoped we wouldn't notice. So on its own terms, the naturalistic project of locating acts of God in particular events as delineated by physical theory has problems with no prospect of easy solution.

Responsibility from the point of view of history is something different from the dilemma of objectivity and subjectivity. We have already seen that the question of what a human act is does not have any answer from naturalistic resources alone. Nature may rule out some answers, but it can never settle the question of which narrative the act is to be fitted into, and that narrative placement determines the act "from outside" more than any of the physical particulars of the act can.

Ultimately, history itself is needed as the narrative context for making sense of human actions, even small ones. Religious language of acts of God is open also; nature could never determine what an act of God is, even when acts of God have an undeniably material substrate, as in the parting of the Sea of Reeds.

The easiest way to retrace our steps, if we are to make sense of acts of God, is to look at the disappointments of life. If one would live open-eyed in history, they must be faced. We sorted them out into three kinds, exposure, limitation, and need. In a world-affirming historical religion, the believing soul responds to each in acts that presuppose trust in some kind of blessing brought in each disappointment. One could ask for "objective" proof that they bring blessings, but there is none. The question of responsibility gets posed differently. We each make our own answers to the questions posed in exposure, limitation, and need. And while there is no "objective" (i.e., naturalistic) guide to the "right" answers, we shall be compared with those who found good and blessings, at great cost to themselves, where others saw life as only barren and defective. It is that comparison that exposes, and it is that comparison that is rejected by those who reject the pains of life as barren. That comparison says all that needs to be said, more than any proof or derivation could.

One may ask, however, in a philosophical vein, whether people are right to embrace the pains of life as good-bearing, without thereby asking for proof. Peter Berger once posed the question in the form of the comfort that a mother gives to a child who has awakened from a nightmare. He asked, in A Rumor of Angels (1990), whether the mother who comforts her child with the words, "Everything's OK" is telling the truth or not. Is the mother lying? Is everything all right? Everything?! Will the child be OK? How can the mother know? What can she do, in face of all that can go wrong? What on earth could the mother really mean? She knows that a bus could hit the child, and then it's not all right.

So what can we say stands behind the faith that it is "all right?" That the pains of life bear blessing? It is not something within the world. It is not something "outside" the world, because the world could then just be extended to include that thing that was formerly outside of it. Perhaps we could just borrow the vernacular, and say, "That's The Way Things Are." That's what people say when they get tired of you pestering them and asking "why?"
questions without end. The Way Things Are is not a thing in the world, nor is it outside the world. It is not a feature of the world, though it is immanently present in the world.

Such language can doubtless be abused as much as the older language of God can. Let other people break it, as they surely will, in time. Look at how it works. "The Way Things Are" does not interfere with nature or natural processes, yet it shows itself in nature and history without being a cause in nature or an actor in history. It is not a part of the world set off from other parts of the world. Where naturalistic theology has to think of divine acts as set off from other parts of physical causation, "The Way Things Are" does not. It is not a thing, that might or might not exist. It is not outside the world in a way that could be roped into the world. It is not outside the world in a way that would leave the world bereft or abandoned.

Yet it is transcendent, for it escapes any power of language to capture it. We know it by the ways it shows itself in history, bearing blessing in the critical events of history. Language of such a transcendent is always analogical and analogy is always helpless against the scoffer who would say, "Those are your analogies." Not as harsh as the "Where, now, O Israel, is your God?" of the Common Documents, but the point is much the same. Indeed, the question just how, really, are things? is one that cannot be settled by arguments.

There is a certain confidence here that the reader will understand how the language works. It is like humor more than it is like the language of science. The hearer may get it -- and may not. Its con- sequences are in a way to live, not in something a scientist could measure. One acknowledges the truth of a joke by laughing, but a treatise on the subject-matter of the joke can work to deny its truth. One acknowledges the truth of covenantal stories by living according to them. Theory is necessary, but it is incidental. Theory is supposed to be like street-signs, to tell you where you are in life. When the language of covenant is taken too literally, it works to bring the believer back into nature religion. That's what happens when analogies are taken literally.

Why the personal analogies in meeting the blessings of life, some painful, some joyous? How does the experience of simple joy bestowed by another person shed light on the experience of joy that just comes, without another actor within the world to bestow it? How does the experience of blessing brought in exposure, limitation, and need in the encounter with other human beings shed light on the experience of being exposed, limited, and needed when you are trying to make sense of life as a whole? When we see one part of life in the light of another, we see by analogy. This analogy, the analogy of the personal, is the analogy by which we speak of ultimate reality, the "That's The Way Things Are," as the source and author of exposure, limitation, and need, and of the blessings that come in them. Such an analogy can be twisted in many ways by those who would bend it to purposes other than affirming all of human life as good. And it can be rejected outright, leaving those who speak in this way with no reply that I can see other than to live according to their own analogies.

Yet analogy is always subject to another kind of attack, from its friends, rather than its enemies. Its enemies will simply reject it. Those with more guile will subvert it. Its friends can try to literalize it. The last possibility is the most interesting for us, for literal readings of analogies lead back to objectivation, and from objectivation to naturalism in theology.

Immanuel Kant found the way out of objectivation late in the eighteenth century. Kant is not particularly easy to read, nor is he the latest stage on the road that led through history to an appreciation of human interpretation in making sense of life. Still, Kant marks a kind of watershed, for some theologians take him in stride, and others resist even today. Yet to complain that Kant and his heirs provide cold comfort is to be like the Israelites in the Sinai, who complained, "were there not graves enough in Egypt, that you brought us out here to die?" (Is Kant a desert? Don't believe me; read him yourself.) But the point of the desert is not to live in it, but to get through it.

To ask whether the God who acts "really" acts, at least in everyday language, is to load the word "really" with a very naturalistic freight. To demand that God "really" act in a way describable in the language of physics is to ask to return to Egypt, to return to naturalistic theology. The Exodus was an exodus not just from Egypt, but also from naturalistic religion, an exodus into history. Through the desert of Kant lies the land of history, the realm of human responsibility, where nature is of limited help in settling questions. It is no wonder that people cry, "were there not problems enough with naturalism, that you brought us out here into history to die?" Still, the light of history tells what is happening, for those who will hear.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
This publication is hosted by Metanexus Online http://www.metanexus.net. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Metanexus or its sponsors.

Metanexus welcomes submissions between 1000 to 3000 words of essays and book reviews that seek to explore and interpret science and religion in original and insightful ways for a general educated audience. Previous columns give a good indication of the topical range and tone for acceptable essays. Please send all inquiries and submissions to . Metanexus consists of a number of topically focused forums (Anthropos, Bios, Cogito, Cosmos, Salus, Sophia, and Techne) and periodic HTML enriched composite digests from each of the lists.

Copyright notice: Except when otherwise noted, articles may be forwarded, quoted, or republished in full with attribution to the author of the column and "Metanexus: The Online Forum on Religion and Science ". Republication for commercial purposes in print or electronic format requires the permission of the author. Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 by Metanexus Institute.

Published   2003.02.20