BLOG. 10/8/15. ‘UNBELIEF’ IS REALLY NOT A POSSIBILITY …
… at least not in the ordinary sense of that term. There is a brilliant Canadian philosopher who has written a very instructive work on this secular age, i.e., the one in which we live which is no longer wedded to the Christendom assumptions about God and the world, which previously prevailed. His thesis is that what prevails now is what he called exclusive humanism. The exclusive humanist rejects God from even his/her presuppositions about life and reality. We’re in this on our own. Or perhaps we could revert to the definition of secularism from an early twentieth century source: “The doctrine that morality should be based on regard to the well-being of mankind in the present life to the exclusion of all consideration drawn from belief in God or a future state” (George Holyoake).
That, of course is an option, but as our Canadian philosopher (Charles Taylor) describes it, it certainly does disenchant the world, and leaves a haunting vacancy. A poet (whom I cannot even track on Google) said in the mid-twentieth century: “It’s been lonely in the world since God died.” Or, as T. S. Eliot wrote in his Wasteland, the wasteland is not in some far off desert clime, but is sitting next to you on the commuter train.
Ah! but exclusive humanism, or secularism, are also acts of faith. Atheism is also an act of faith, and one that is much more difficult to reconcile with the realities of life in this cosmos than is theism. Agnosticism is also an act of faith, and perhaps a more cowardly one in that it simply says that we cannot know, so why get all lathered up about religion.
Perhaps one of the most poignant descriptions of such ‘unbelief’ is Paul’s description of those “having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). Unbelief is a faith choice as much as is faith. It should mystify the exclusive humanist as to why the whole history of humankind has grappled in so many ways with the mysteries of this life and this world. To have been betrayed by some religious expression could and has turned many people bitter about its expressions. But one’s disillusioning experience of some religious doesn’t answer the ultimate sense of it all. In one sense, we are all like Walker Percy’s figure in Lost In the Cosmos seeking to make sense of it all. Everyone has some belief system, even a belief that there is not such belief system.
It is also no secret that there is a considerable population of exclusive humanists who inhabit church institutions, but who find the ‘spiritual’ ethos meaningful and somehow worth their involvement—but who have almost no conception of what it is that Jesus came to be and do that gives us light in this cosmic mystery. The apostle Paul, as a matter of fact, does indeed describe Jesus as the key to the mystery hidden for the ages but now revealed in Jesus’ coming as the revealer of God.
So we now have a population of thoe products of social networks, who go about fastened to their iPhones and oblivious to all that is beyond their personal welfare, and even indifferent to it. But when silence descends, and when one has time to reflect, … yes, the attempt to eliminate God and the revelation of God, and the glory of God evident is so many persons and situations and patterns … leaves in its wake that haunted world that Taylor speaks of. Yes, “it has been lonely in the world since God died” but that elimination of God is also a tragic act of faith in meaninglessness, hopelessness, and isolation. It is that very nightmarish condition that Jesus was continually speaking to. In this statement eludes you, try reading the New Testament accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus. You’re in for some surprises.
