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As I’ve mentioned in past posts, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about belief paradigms and epistemology (kind of the same thing). To someone who hasn’t spent years questioning things, it probably seems like a silly thing to think about.  However, how we know what we think we know, and what we think we can know, is essential to a number of issues, including such apparently diverse topics as faith, science and even romance.

Think for a moment, those of you who are lucky enough to have someone love them. How do you know that you are loved? What is your criteria? Do you even need criteria? Is it just a feeling, or is your belief based on some rational analysis? What do you mean when you say that you love someone?

For at least 200 years we in the Western world have lived within a modern worldview. Modernism is essentially the result of the Enlightenment, when men suddenly realized that reason and logic were, well, reasonable and logical, and surpassed any other basis for knowledge. The ultimate reliance upon reason, combined with the questionable belief in progress (that is, the belief that change is ultimately for the better, and what is new is better than that which is old), is modernism in a nutshell. Modernists believe that science and technology improve the quality of life. Every problem is addressed in a reasonable fashion, and they take Aristotelian logic for granted.

Now, I love logic as much as the next guy, and sometimes even more. It’s a great tool. However, as I’ve studied a bit of history here and there, I’ve realized that not all cultures have thought the way that we do. For example, our concept of cause and effect, that doing this will always result in that, is a modern concept. Moderns see time as progressive - that is, like a time-line, moving from the past into the future. Ancient cultures tended to see time in a circular fashion, which is why the seasons took on the importance that they did.

Being modern, we presume that those illogical ancient cultures were wrong. After all, we know so much more now, and we have medicine and indoor plumbing.  We don’t worship the sun (well, some of us still do), and we don’t chant and wave dead chickens around. Instead, we do things like play the lottery or go to casinos even though we know (there’s that word again) that the odds are against us. And, we have indoor plumbing.

I’ve heard stories about modern missionaries encountering so-called primitive cultures, and being laughed at when they try to explain things in modern terms. To non-modern cultures, our cause-and-effect thinking is laughable, because they believe - and according to them, know - that things aren’t always what they seem. Quantum theories have also challenged some of that cause and effect thinking, especially when they do experiments that seem to show that the effect sometimes occurs before the cause, or that different effects exist simultaneously, up until the point they are observed.

So here’s the question: how do we know that modern logic is the best way - or even a good way - to think? The catch here is, of course, that we can’t use modern logic to comment on itself. How, then, do we know what we know?

Isn’t this fun?

I am in the middle of reading Bishop N.T. Wright’s book Surprised by Hope, which deals with the doctrine of Heaven and what Wright calls “life after life after death.”  It’s blowing the minds of some evangelicals who don’t like being told that Heaven isn’t necessarily the goal.

I was quite surprised to hear that Bishop Wright was interviewed last week on The Colbert Report, a somewhat dangerous place for nearly anyone in which to find themselves.  In the interview, Wright dialogues with Colbert about Heaven, dogma and other fun stuff.  Check it out, Wright is on about the 13:30 mark. (And, Cookie Monster is a surprise guest earlier in the show!)

My friend Mike has become involved in a new co-op blog entitled Clashing Culture. It is an interesting concept, as the authors consist of 2 people who identify themselves as atheists, and 2 people who identify as Christians. Their logo is especially catchy, featuring both the new Atheist scarlet “A” in Clashing and a cross for the “t” in Culture.

However, as I read through some of the posts and the authors’ bios, it seems that they may have more culture in common - and therefore less “clash” - than they think. Certainly the question of God is a big issue; however, in this case it may simply be a disagreement within a culture than the clash of different cultures. Before I explain what I mean, let me say that there are some very interesting posts so far, and I don’t in any way mean to speak negatively about any of the authors or the blog. If you’ll notice, I’ve even added it to my blogroll and (possibly to their dismay) will likely be a regular reader and commenter. It will indeed be interesting to see where this blog goes, and I wish them well as it is a very clever concept.

So, here’s what I mean by “culture in common:” Two of the authors, my friend Mike and Anastasia (whose own blog is Genetic Maize) are by their own admission atheists (not that they need to be ashamed of this, it’s just that I want to clarify that I’m not putting words in their mouths); both were raised Catholic, and down the road decided that there was no empirical evidence of God and the supernatural. I presume they would both be okay with the descriptor “philosophical materialist,” meaning someone who has a worldview where all that exists is the material world, which can be seen, tested, prodded, and so on. Both are rationalists and committed to the scientific approach to knowledge. Both of them are also modernists, the predominant worldview of the 20th Century Western world.

The other 2 individuals are perhaps harder to categorize (and I do apologize, I am being very modernist in my analysis, but it’s just a tool, albeit a flawed one). Thomas Robey is a well-known blogger at Hope For Pandora and a MD/PhD student at the U of Washington. He is a professing Christian of the Presbyterian persuasion, who says he believes in the “basics of Christianity” but admits having trouble with the concepts of eternal life and miracles. He is an evolutionist, not believing in either young Earth creationism or intelligent design. He states, “When it comes to interpreting the Bible, I see scientific understanding as trumping metaphorical stories - particularly in the Old Testament.”

Steve Matheson is a developmental cell biologist who blogs at Quintessence of Dust. He teaches at Calvin College, attends a Reformed church, which I presume makes him a Calvinist. From his own blog, I gather that he is an evolutionist who believes in common descent. I haven’t read enough of him to know where he stands with regard to Intelligent Design except that he’s critical of some aspects of at least some aspects of it. (I have to say that I have a hard time seeing how a Calvinist could not believe in ID!) In any event, his states that the main theme of his blog is scientific explanation.

My intent is not to misrepresent or even criticize anyone, and if I have misunderstood anyone’s position, I apologize. My point here is this: While the 4 authors are split 50/50 on belief in God, they are all modernists. That’s not such a big surprise, as most Americans are, including most evangelical Christians. In looking at the blogs of Matheson and Robey, it appears that in keeping with modernist philosophy they are rationalists, approaching things - even religion - from a scientific culture and viewpoint (if anyone, Matheson would seem the most likely to clash with the others). This now places all four authors within a smaller subculture (which at least borders on scientism), as a large percentage of Western Christians - especially among evangelicals, Pentecostals and fundamentalists - would part ways in holding science to that level of authority (which tends to result in fractured worldviews on both sides of that fence). So, it would seem that at best, what we have is a clash between sub-cultures, if not sub-sub-cultures.

Again (and I want to make this abundantly clear), it is not my intention to be critical of the Clashing Culture site or its intent. As I mentioned recently I’ve been thinking lately about epistemology and worldview so this site just prompted more thinking. Congratulations to the CC crew on a great-looking blog. I have high hopes for you, so don’t disappoint me!