Thing and Purpose- Why Smart People Choose to Become Dumb Christians

Thing and Purpose- Why Smart People Choose to Become Dumb Christians.

In this brief essay I want to explain to the non-Christian why an educated person, in today’s age, might choose to be a Christian. I will explain why using what philosophers call “epistemology”, which is a big fancy word to describe “how we know what we know.” Some of these ideas will seem silly because they are self evident. But bear with me because they are self evident on assumptions we all have- “Faith” if you will. 

In addition, I will be grounding my case on the notion that myself, and anyone I’ve ever met, is working out their purpose in life (or as philosophers like to call it “teleology”) This takes various forms in different people and backgrounds, but all people as far as I can tell are working out their purpose in life (sometimes it’s like the bumbersticker reads, “whoever dies with the most toys wins” , sometimes it’s “I’m trying to get to Heaven”, etc). The following will express what I believe at a surface or ground floor level,  and why that knowledge leads me to Christianity as a reasonable way to live life.

To start with, “I think therefore I am”, the famous adage from philosopher Descartes still holds true. I exist. I know I exist because I am thinking. There is a subjective “I” and that guy is me.

My experience lends itself to belief in the existence of other persons and individual objects in the world. I guess it is possible that may not be true, and I could be a brain in a vat hallucinating a complex world of individual objects and living beings, but it seems to be the most reasonable conclusion that I am actually in a world of these things.  Most sane people believe in other minds, or consciousness in other people’s physical bodies. Even if this can’t be verified! For example, we can see a sack of blood, guts, and brains, but we also know a person is there based upon a leap of faith. Science has not discovered the seat of consciousness yet within the human brain, and yet, we all believe that there is indeed a person standing in front of us when a good lookin’ sack of blood, guts, bone, and brains is standing in front of us.

Same thing holds for objects. I know they are there by my 5 senses and the emotional responses I have when Interacting with them. For example, I know that a car exists by what it looks like, the fact I can get in it, and the fact that I would be terrified if someone asked me to leave it while traveling 55 miles an hour. Yikes!

That said, it also appears that sense data is complex and sometimes unreliable. For example, color perception due to different lighting. Not to mention, according to current science, color doesn’t even exist (best magic trick ever!) Other examples include thinking or seeing something that isn’t there because of various associations we have (yikes! That snake is huge....phew it’s just a rope), or thinking you see someone you know when it’s not that person (truly embarrassing moments have happened), etc. So, in some ways, our senses aren’t exactly the most reliable thing at all. Not trusting them completely might be the best course of action.

Now, let’s talk time! My experience shows me that the most vivid and true plane of existence is within “the present” (an umbrella term we all use to express how we understand time). Within “the present” is an acknowledgment or memory of “the past” (which is less reliable and fuzzy), as well as an “expectation” and confidence of a “future”. Related to “future” is the internal recognition I have of some sort of ending or completion, a purpose. This could merely be be an intuitive understanding of my own mortality, but I think it has more to do with what I can become before I’m six feet under.

I am also living within the boundaries of a certain culture in a particular time period. This is my primary lens for interpreting my own life  (I live in the northeast US, I only speak the English language, I have memories (however faint!) going back to the year 1974, etc). Both the cultural and historical are super important lenses for me to navigate and interpret the stream of present moments. 

Within this life there also seems to be a longing for a purpose I intuitively want to achieve. And a lot of ink has been spilled through the ages on what and how to achieve various ideas of purpose. Given my own longing for purpose, and all the voices out there chiming in on purpose,  it seems to me to be a universal, hardwired human desire. Again, I could be wrong, but does seem such.

The documents that address the above in the most detail I have found are within the scope of philosophical and religious literature. These writings are the result of communities shaped by individual people. These communities shape, extend, and give weight to the streams of thought. These communities are also shaped within their own cultural and historical settings.

According to the literature, my own personal experience, and many other folks Ive talked with, a “Thing” that is beyond our experience called reality exists. This Thing is some sort of aspect of our reality that is beyond the 5 senses. It exists beyond what we can see. Philosophers have called this  the “Transcendental” aspect of Thing. Many philosophers and theologians also think Thing is within our reality by creating and sustaining the present moment. Philosophers call this “the Imminent” aspect of Thing.  

Many throughout the history of thought think that our purpose in life is somehow connected to this idea of Thing (but they usually call it “the One” or “God” or “Ground of Being”).  For them, there is an assumption that we are all out of whack with our relation to Thing. Some philosophers call this “estrangement.” This seems to make sense to me from my own experience and what I’ve read in the literature available to me. So, our intuition of our purpose and our existential anxiety speak to our estrangement. We long for unity and completion!

I have found that Thing can be “observed” within/without aspects of experience. For myself I have the clearest picture when I am in nature, watching or playing sports, appreciating or making art, music, and in  what I call “prayer”. Within all of these a Thing to person interplay is present. One learns about Thing within this interplay/communication. Because of this, Thing seems to be a personal Thing as opposed to an impersonal Thing.

Going back to our sacks of skin, blood, bones and brains for a second, as we remember, we have faith that these sacks are other minds. This is done by spending time with a person, and through their sharing their personal experience and history. The same seems true with Thing. Spending time is done individually, Thing to person, person to Thing. Thing knows me and I know some stuff about Thing.

I have found that the most knowledge of who Thing is and the personal history of Thing is gained within a community who shares the same sort of experience regarding Thing. Within a community, a person can learn about Thing (who Thing is, what Thing is, what responsibility to Thing we might have to achieve our Purpose, etc). Community usually develops a canon of literature and common practices that form the primary school for this knowledge.

Given Thing’s apparent personal nature, there are only a few choices in ideology and community for me (given my cultural and historical lens I have). Christianity is the only personal theistic system I’m aware of that is universal and culturally inclusive, therefore available to me. It also is the only system I’m aware of that confesses that our purpose is not something we can can actually achieve by our own doing. This is attractive to me because my own experience speaks to this being true.

So! Given my cultural and historical experience, I gain the most insight into the human condition, its existential crises/anxiety, and proposed solution in Christianity. I believe it to be true and pragmatic. Systems that compete with Christianity also provide insight into the human condition and I enjoy reading about them and interacting with people in those traditions. Their experience can be translated with Christian language. These systems help to provide a more robust theology. But the dominant paradigm for me is still Christianity.  Other systems that provide insight are ultimately “false” as complete systems (meaning basically that they conflict with primary truth claims within the Christian system of thought). Therefore, it is my experience that I my authenticity (or my “authentic life”) can only be achieved within one dominant expression of a truth system. Christianity for me is the most reasonable vehicle to pursue Purpose.

That said, It is also my experience that Christianity cannot be lived out in its true sense by intellectual agreement. Mostly because a lot within Christianity is downright ridiculous. It is irrational and unbelievable. A supernatural “calling out” and “translation” allowed me to move toward the Christian program of thought, and to sit comfortably within the irrationality of the Christian program. Through faith one becomes comfortable with the irrational within the rational, the supernatural within the natural (eg. “Trinity”, “Incarnation”, “Atonement”, “Resurrection”, etc). It is my opinion that this supernatural calling was done through Thing (as most people within the Christian worldview can attest).

I hope within this brief essay I have provided an argument for my own belief in Christianity based upon several truth claims: 1) the assumption of existence of many individual beings of one category (human beings); 2) The assumption of the existence of a personal ground of being called Thing. 3) The assumption that individuals have a Purpose hardwired into their subjective experience. 4) The assumption that the purpose humans experience is related to a disunity or estrangement from Thing. 5) That Christianity is a reasonable framework for myself and others to deal with the apparent problem of 3 and 4. I hope these have been satisfactorily presented, and one can see how a smart person could choose to be a dumb Christian.