John Caputo and the Deathly Hallows

           In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, “The Tale of the Three Brothers” offers significant commentary on religion. As a reward for evading Death (a being), Death awards the three brothers magical items of their choosing. Though the items of the oldest and youngest brother are important to the story, the item of the middle brother offers up a critique of religion. As his reward, the middle brother “wanted to humiliate Death still further… [he] asked for the power to recall others from Death” (Rowling 407). Death granted the brother this power in the form of a stone entitled The Resurrection Stone. Ironic due to the obvious harkening to the infamous Easter story, this stone represents the unique power not to raise people from the dead, but rather to present the user of the stone with images of his or her beloved. As a result of this power, the brother is “driven mad by hopeless longing” and commits suicide (409). Thus, it appears that the critique of religion that the story of the Resurrection Stone offers is exactly what John Caputo means when he writes that “Literalized, heaven and hell ruin everything” (241). Because of this I am contending that both the Stone and Caputo argue that confessional religion demeans the value of life by its negation of death. Thus, Caputo’s idea of the Nihilism of Grace rescues religion by negating its negation of death; placing the value of life being shown through death, just as the stone shows that the value of life is shown in its necessary and permanent end.

            The consistent theme of Insistence is the continual hammering home that people are finite beings. Things must be able to end. Caputo writes, “The beauty of the songs lovers sing is intensified by the fact that they know they will die” (237). Insistence is not so much about “God” as much as it is about the relationship that humanity shares with the name. It is, more than anything else, about negating the negation of death that confessional religion has resulted in. The negation of death that confessional religion has championed has been the reduction of life to something that has no meaning beyond the answer to a question. In Christianity, if to accept Jesus is to gain a ticket that permits access to a heavenly realm, then this realm is forsaken. Why is there need to save the planet? Why is there need to act morally? Why must I even love God if it is, in the end, of no consequence to my eternal consequence? Even within the doctrine of universalism stirs the unsettling idea that nothing in this life is important. If past villains such as Stalin and Hitler will join me in this other realm, why was what they did any better or any worse than anything I have done? The result of a literal heaven and hell is the negation of this life; and this is above all what Caputo is desperately trying to save religion from.

            Caputo is a radical Kierkegaard who not only mocks the idea of so-called Christendom, but goes a step further by arguing that fidelity to even the God of Kierkegaard is distinctly dangerous to the event that is housed within the name (of) “God.” However, to establish this, I must first directly confront Kierkegaard. In The Sickness Unto Death, Kierkegaard defines sin as “before God, or with the conception of God, in despair not to will to be oneself, or in despair to will to be oneself” (77). Thus what Kierkegaard is attempting to expound upon is his declaration that within each person lays their infinite self, placed there by God, who is infinite. He writes, “A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis” (13). To Kierkegaard, this synthesis is represented by the infinite regression created by self-conscious. If an individual is self-conscious of the fact that she is conscious then she is conscious of the fact that she is self-conscious of her self-consciousness. These degrees of consciousness regress infinitely, and for Kierkegaard, if they are ideally balanced, are a synthesis between a person’s finite body and her infinite soul, placed there by God. This also, for Kierkegaard, creates a need for God. Because the regression of consciousness (the soul) is infinite, it can never be filled by the finite. Therefore God is a necessity to humanity’s condition because only the infinite (God) can fill an infinite space.

            Though Kierkegaard calls God a conception, that is simply because he is writing of the human mind. For him, God is very real and the greatest form of despair (sin) is defiance, or “the self that a person in despair wills to be…he himself wants to compose his self by means of being the infinite form” (68). This is to say that the greatest sin is imagining oneself as in total command of becoming her true self. This sin replaces God, to Kierkegaard a non-anthropomorphized hyper-being, with oneself. Thus, here is where Caputo and Kierkegaard must part. For Kierkegaard has proclaimed that life has true meaning only in willing to become one’s true self before God, thus finding salvation in bringing something that is beyond this world into one’s self to synthesize the finite and the infinite that make up a person. However, to Caputo this participates too much in the idea of two-world metaphysics; and above all “Life is demeaned the moment it is made a means, the subject matter of a covenant or contract, instead of recognizing that we already belong to a contract with life that was signed in advance for us being born and does not require our countersignature” (242). However, using Caputo, Kierkegaard can be reframed into something he most certainly would not want to be: a theologian of the perhaps. To the Kierkegaard of the perhaps, to sin is to either not will to be oneself before God, perhaps; or to will to be oneself in defiance of God, perhaps. Thus, if life is demeaned at the moment it is viewed as a means it is also negated, and this would be the Kierkegaard’s sin. However, there is a Hegelian double movement required in the logic of the perhaps: a negation of the negation that results in an affirmation. By willing to embrace Caputo’s Nihilism of Grace, a binding to life unbound, one negates the negation caused by a confessional religion and wills to become oneself before God, perhaps.

            This represents the response to God’s insistence, thus it becomes an event as it is “entirely on the plane of the event, extricated from all commercial exchange with divine beings about an after-life, forced to face the fateful fact that the chance of grace comes down to the grace of chance” (242). Here, the negation of the negation results not in an affirmation of unending life, but in a life that will end in the death which affirms life. It does not attempt to distance itself from the mortality of humanity, but instead embraces it as recognition that death is what assures us that life happened. Thus we must return to the resurrection stone, which denies that death is what creates life. If Caputo is correct in arguing that the death of God is actually the birth of God, then this means that death is the bearer of life. The resurrection stone negates death as it once again denies death the opportunity to birth life. The resurrection stone is the manifestation of a literal heaven and hell. What is done on this earth does not matter because the stone removes the meaning from the event. With the stone there is no room for events because there is no possibility for the impossible. There is only the possible.

            We are suspended between the beginning and the end. What Caputo does is demand that this fluctuation we flirt with have meaning precisely in its lack of meaning. Where, according to Caputo, Ray Brassier says that for humans there is only being-nothing (which is our new Kierkegaard’s idea of willing to be oneself in defiance of God, perhaps), Caputo says that there is “being-for-nothing” (244). Once again there is something suspended betwixt “being” and “nothing;” between “birth” and “death.” The “grace” of the Nihilism of Grace is the embrace of the suspension between the two sides that ultimately will mean nothing because it is pure chance that it was even a possibility. It is a result of the possibility of the impossible.

It is neither life alone, which we take for granted, nor death alone, in which we concede that death comes to us all, but precisely the suspension between life and death, the fluctuation between two worlds, that is truly “solemn.” That is the solemnity of life/death, the solemnity of the ur-ethical and ur-religious event of life/death, I would say. (233)

Caputo succeeds where Kierkegaard does not because Caputo has no preoccupation with a thought that this life has any meaning for anything outside of ourselves. Kierkegaard will not stand for a negation of a negation not simply because of his hatred of Hegelian thought, but due to his inability to perceive God as something other than a hyper-being; where God is the ultimate being because he is the ultimate conception and to sin is to deny this. Caputo’s theology relies not on a conception of God, but on the name (of) “God” and the event that is housed within it.

            Life is made by death. This is just to say that death is not an anathema of life, but is actually the fulfillment of it. The event that is housed within the name (of) “God” is one in which life is found by realizing that life must be lost in the annals of time. The insistence of God is the call of the event that is harbored within “God.” It is a call that requires us to embrace the suspension between life/death in order to live for nothing. But to live and then to die is all that matters, for death establishes that we lived at all. To no surprise, this is also the close of the “The Tale of the Three Brothers.” The first brother wished to become a master of ending life, leaving no room for the tension that must lie between life/death. The middle brother took the resurrection stone, ending death’s sting by ending the ability to grab what was suspended between life/death as life extended past death, becoming life-(death)-life. The youngest brother, however, took the cloak of invisibility, allowing him what was necessary to embrace life until it was time for it to end, and then, just as Caputo would demand of any practicing radical theologian, “he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life” (Rowling 409).

Caputo, John D. The Insistence of God. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.

Kierkegaard, Soren. The Sickness Unto Death. Ed. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. New York: Scholastic, 2007.

The Real Loser in the Creation Debate

     I've seen many responses to the Nye/Ham debate that took place last night, but none of them seem to have been similar to the thought that I took from it. Mainly the response has been that either Evolution had a resounding victory or that Science was embarrassed for even participating in the debate, such as the article here. However, the danger that debate really hammered home was this incorrect idea that one cannot be a Christian and reject Creationism. What is truly sad, but not surprising in the least, is the fact that Bill Nye did a better job arguing for the compatibility of science and faith then Ken Ham did. In fact, when asked if anything could change his mind, Ken Ham said nothing could, but more importantly, started his response with, "Well, I am a Christian so..." And therein lies the problem. Within the context of the question that is a radical fundamentalist response that only further does a disservice to the religion that is Christianity. What people such as Ken Ham do not (and perhaps refuse) to understand is that being a Christian is not something that can be narrowed down to exact.. well.. science.

     What makes a Christian? Is it believing that Jesus died and rose back to life? Literally or metaphorically? Is it based off one's actions that reveal a true faith within? Is is believing that the entirety of the Bible is literally true and must be taken as such? To Ken Ham it is very black and white. There is no gray area. This is precisely the problem. The real loser of the Creation debate is not Ken Ham. It is not Bill Nye. It is not Science. It is Christianity. Christianity loses in debates such as this one simply because it further propagates the idea that Christianity is comprised of one, simple, absurd worldview that one must ascribe to if he or she wants to be a Christian. One must go no further than Twitter and search "#CreationDebate" to see that the majority of people found Ham's views to be ridiculous. But here is where the real danger for Christianity comes into play. Today's world is obsessed with polar thinking and it poisons everything. This debate may have only pitted Creation against Evolution, but it did not take much of a push until it was obvious that for many people it became a debate that pitted God against Evolution. There were an equal amount of people that "were praying for the soul of Bill Nye" as there were laughing at Ken Ham for believing in God. It was obvious that for many people accepting Evolution meant rejecting Jesus.

     For many Christians there is a belief which they have been indoctrinated with and they do not even realize it. For many Christians if one word of the Bible is wrong, the entirety of the Bible is wrong. Thus, Genesis must be entirely true. This runs under the false assumption that the writers of the Bible were conscious of the fact that they were writing the Bible. The Bible represents a variety of viewpoints that span a massive amount of time. Most of it being a form of truth that is entirely foreign to a modern understanding of the word "truth." The creation story is wonderful example of it. It is called Mythos, or Myth. This form of Myth is lost in today's world. It is a word for "story" that does not connote either reality or falsehood. It is a story that is a story. It relays what you want it to relay. Myth is truth, but not the truth that science finds. Genesis is a pure Myth. It is not that it is not true, but it is instead that it is a different way of thinking about what is true. From a Judeo-Christian perspective the Myth of creation represents the special connection humanity has with God. Taking it as as an actual moment in history makes no sense and actually takes away the real truth that is contained within the story.

     As Kenneth Miller said in his wonderful book Finding Darwin's God:

A strong and self-confident religious belief cannot forever pin its hopes on the desperate supposition that an entire branch of science is dramatically wrong, thereby to teeter always on the brink of logical destruction. To be sure, genuine faith requires from its adherents to trust in God, but it also demands a confidence in the power of the human mind to investigate, explore, and understand the evolving nature of God's world.

Ken Ham's Christianity makes Christianity something that is too far beyond reason ever comprehend in a modern world. It ignores context and refuses to acknowledge that people have not always thought the same way about life. It denies that Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Philosophy are valid. It stands in a room with nowhere else to go and flips the lights off in order to pretend that nothing else is true. Yet Ken Ham is more dangerous than that analogy because Ken Ham finds himself in a position of authority. When Ken Ham spoke last night he did not simply speak as a proponent of Creation Science, he spoke as a Christian who proclaimed that his stance was the stance of Christianity. When Ken Ham said that nothing could change his position simply because he is a Christian and that is what Christians believe, Christianity instantly lost the debate. What he damaged was the idea of the Christianity in thousands of watchers who were instantly brought into the incorrect dichotomy of Atheism or Christianity, Evolution or Creation.
     If what Ken Ham wants to call Christianity is to be understood as the Christianity then I must reluctantly join Mary Daly in walking out of the Church, giving up on Christianity, and denying that anything fruitful is left to be found within its sphere. I say reluctantly as I do not want to give up on something I think can be saved and is potentially beneficial to people. I do not even want to be a heretic in this form of Christianity, simply because it connects me to it. Creation Science has been discredited in both science and popular culture. However, a debate such as this one lent credibility not to Creation Science, but to Ken Ham's Christianity, which is the stereotype Christianity. The moment that fundamentalism was able to take center stage and call itself the one, true Christianity (as if there is such a thing), Christianity, in all its forms, lost the debate.  

Heretical Thoughts Jotted Down

          There is no doubt that I am a wanderer. When it comes to faith I at times think to myself that the only reason I do not call myself an atheist is the fact that when I privately say "You're an atheist" to myself, I can't seem to stomach that. This bothers me because I feel that it is a total injustice to my atheist friends who are some of the most wonderful people in the world, and here I am reluctant to call myself an atheist because it seems bad. That puts me within a stereotype I hate perpetrating: that atheists can't be good people. This is a hot button issue for me because I know that it is completely ridiculous and I know that it is wrong. Other times I love the idea of a/theism. God without God. A realization that it is impossible to conceptualize such a being that is so wholly other than us. If God is wholly other than us, and we exist, doesn't that mean that God does not? This is what I think about. God can't simply exist, God must do something that is indescribable because language just breaks down in an attempt to formulate it. So in light of these thoughts I have had to ask myself if this prevents me from being anything. Does this make me another member of the rise of the religious "nones?" Recently I have begun examining the various tenants of Christianity and asking myself what they mean to me. I fully admit to being a follower of the teachings of Jesus*, but I now have to ask if that is what makes someone a Christian or not.

          So my attention turns to a major tenant of Christianity: the resurrection of Jesus. Even during my days of pious Christian orthodoxy I must admit I had doubts about this and had questions such as "If Jesus was the 'perfect sacrifice' then how was he allowed to come back to life? Doesn't this negate the 'sacrifice' part?" A question like that is wholly theological question, already presupposing that Jesus did indeed rise. The funny part to me (now) is that this question also begs the question, "Did God screw up?" Now the questions I ask are different as I try to rethink God and even what it means to say "God." I ask, "How can I believe this? I doubt God simply because I realize that it is impossible to know one way or another. Who am I to make bold assertions of the supernatural as it potentially is and conceptualize God in any way? So if this the way I think about God, how can I believe in something I know to be absolutely impossible?" It is this question that causes a degree of entropy in my mind. How can I be a Christian and deny this event? Can anyone? 

          My answer? Yes.

          This predicates upon the idea that the Bible should not be read as a history book, but rather read as one reads poetry; finding meaning within the text and finding the truth that you know is probably not within the realm of the physical, but is instead true only in the meaning it provides. The teachings of Jesus no doubt teach that we are to hold others above ourselves, care for the poor, not judge anyone, and value life above all else. What has happened in the history of Christianity has been the lifting up of the mystical teachings of Jesus over the pragmatic teachings that apply to our lives. The mystical, religious teachings that have been so keenly held on to are the ones that come in the later gospels, especially the book of John. Many Christians have so dogmatically clung to verses such as John 14:6 (I am the way, the truth, and the life...) that they fail to emulate the other teachings. What is so tragic is the fact that teachings such as the one in John 14:6 are historically unlikely to have been uttered by Jesus. The book of John was written thirty years or more after the book of Mark and is so highly "theologized" that many biblical historians take it with a grain of salt when it comes to identifying what Jesus actually said. But yet this is the book that people so emphatically cling to. This is the book where Christianity seems to base its theological teachings. It is painfully ironic because this is the book that is radically different than the first three gospels and is the book when Jesus becomes an exclusivist. 

          As a result of preferencing the mystical over the practical, we have privileged the absurd over the practical. We have let the miracles in the bible take total meaning over the actual teachings. The water to wine becomes fact. The raising of Lazarus becomes fact. The resurrection becomes demonstration. If a historical fact, the resurrection becomes something that's only meaning beyond it's literal happening is a skewed teaching that in Christianity there is no death. That in Christianity we overcome the real thing that makes us realize just how finite we are, just how amazing and unbelievable it is that we exist, just how important it is to make every moment count in order to make an impact. In believing the resurrection as demonstration one unknowingly rejects the practical teachings of Jesus because they are not what matter anymore. If purely believing that professing yourself as a believer in Christ is what gets us a ticket into heaven, then what do Jesus' teachings even matter anymore? It is a narcissistic individualism that is bent to help only one person at a time. This is the exact opposite of everything Jesus actually taught. 

          But if we understand the Bible as full of meaning shown through allegory we begin to understand something much more beautiful and Jesus-like than current orthodoxy. In this understanding Jesus is murdered. He is not given a fair trial. His crime is seen as a falsity that has been directed at him by hypocritical, corrupt religious leaders. He is hung on a cross and dies, yet in his last moments forgives those who have committed the atrocity of condemning a man that they know is innocent. We see a moment of pure humility and doubt in his cry of "God, why have you forsaken me?**" Then we see Jesus resurrect himself. He overcomes death and declares the atrocities that have just been committed against him and against all basic understanding of what justice is as impotent. It is in this understanding that we can derive the meaning that there are atrocities in the world, there are injustices, and that it is the common man who pays the penalty of the powerful's inability to forgo their own corruption and wealth for the sake of the many. The resurrection, in this sense, is the human spirit to go on in the face of all this. The resurrection teaches us that there is a good in spite of all the evil that can never be broken. In this understanding we are faced with the truth of the matter: The evil that holds power will abuse its power and in many instances get its way, but the true instance of humanity is its ability to forgive that evil, thus negating it by declaring that its acts don't matter; they are impotent.

          So when did being Christian become equal to having a ticket stub? It is amazing to me that people can think that only Christians can have morals when it appears to me that so many Christians have fundamentally misinterpreted Jesus' message. If what it means to be a Christian is not to follow the teachings of Jesus, but rather to embrace mystical ideas that have lost their place in the modern world then I am afraid that I am a full blown heretic (as if that wasn't obvious enough). In today's world Jesus is seen in many ways. In emulation of the teachings of Jesus, I feel as if we see atheists fighting for human rights, demanding justice, and continually identifying the good that is within people. Across the aisle, we seem to see an abundance of Christians against tolerance, against granting human rights to those who are denied them, and who have chosen to fully believe that no one can be in perpetually unfortunate circumstances, but instead must be people who are not good enough (morally) to rise up and get out of them. If this is truly the case then there will come a point where I do not want to be a Christian. It would be wonderful to redefine the idea for the better, thus why I am a fan of the Emerging Church, but I do believe there comes a point in which something becomes so toxic that it cannot be saved; apparently not even by Jesus.

*By teachings of Jesus I have to clarify that I mean the teachings that I am comfortable with historically ascribing to him. I don't follow the logic of the Jesus Seminar, who attribute only 18% of the gospels to Jesus' actual teaching, but I fully (and heretically) deny that all the red letters in the Bible are actual teachings of Jesus. 

**The only statement of Jesus on the cross that is accounted for in more than one gospel.

(In)finite as Impotent: Faith in Response to the Immeasurable

           Perhaps St. Augustine’s famous question should be reconsidered and posited again, but this time with a different voicing. Instead of asking what I love when I love my God, maybe I should ask: What do I have faith in, when I have faith in God? But even still, that is a question not ready to be answered. Instead I must ask: What is this thing which I have, only to place in something other? As Johannes de Silentio finishes Fear and Trembling and blatantly tells his reader to either approach the paradox or watch Abraham, as the father of faith, come to an end, I am only certain that in the statement of “either there is a paradox, that the single individual as the particular stands in an absolute relation to the absolute, or Abraham is done for,” that the absolute is God, the absolute relation is faith, and that the single individual is Abraham (120). However, the key to this puzzle is the particular, and the particular can be stated as Abraham fulfilling his absolute duty to God. In this essay I want to say that this relation between individual and God through absolute duty and faith is necessary because it expresses the true relationship between the immeasurable and the finite as the finite recognizing its own impotency in the face of the immeasurable.

            To recall my repositing of Augustine’s question, this “thing” in which I have, only so far as to place in something else, is for de Silentio, faith. This faith that we can have (as it is a potentiality) is only purposeful in that it can be placed in something that is not us. It can be understood as a kernel of the truly infinite, which I call the immeasurable. It is not the ethical, but is instead beyond the ethical and into the religious. For de Silentio, this faith is the most important thing that Abraham can possess, because he must possess it or everything is lost. If Abraham is lost, everything is lost because we need Abraham’s faith for the religious to be understood. Abraham shows the existence of an absolute duty to God out of necessity. If Abraham is just a man that went on a mountain to murder his son, but then changed his mind, then there is no faith and we are all deceived. In standing as “the single individual as the particular” Abraham transcends the idea of ethical duty, as the ethical duty is simply to fulfill the universal. The ethical duty for Abraham would be simply to love his son, as a father must love his son. However, Abraham is not sacrificing Isaac out of love for Isaac; nor is Abraham forgoing the sacrifice of Isaac because he loves Isaac as a father loves his son. He is sacrificing Isaac because that is his impotency in relation to the immeasurable. Abraham is acting through virtue of the absurd. This absurdity- the religious- is beyond ethics. Who is Abraham to say that God is unethical or immoral? This is Abraham’s impotence, and simultaneously the impotence we all must confront in the face of the immeasurable. Our impotency is that our idea of infinite is still of a separate, lesser, quality than God’s infinity.

To say that God is immoral is to place God within the standards of the ethical, but God is not ethical. To say that God is ethical is to bring God down from the religious infinite into the universal infinite, which is applicable only in human reason. This is impossible to do with God or faith because “faith begins precisely where thought stops” (53).  This is not meant to be the common fundamentalist phrase that excuses God from any questioning, i.e. “God’s ways are higher than ours!” It is to say that at any moment in which one takes God and places him within a purely human sphere (albeit a non-physical, infinite one), one has perverted God into something that God cannot be if we hope to imagine him as made up of a substance or quality that is separate from our own. One goes beyond thought, beyond ethics, with a leap of faith, removing he or she from what is known, understood, and formulated, and placing his or her self into something that is unknown, impossible to understand, and impossible to formulate.

            This leap of faith is the beginning of an encounter with the immeasurable. The leap of faith is what enables Abraham to stand as the particular in absolute relation to the absolute. Abraham as the particular is Abraham expressing his absolute duty to God in a form that cannot be expressed to Sarah, Isaac, or Eliezer. The absolute duty to God is based upon the recognition of our own finitude in relation to God. Even within the ethical we fall short of our duty to God because God requires the service of the individual. The individual acts within the spheres of the aesthetic and the ethical; however, to make a movement that is neither sensual to the self as its purpose, nor an appeal to the ethical obligations of being a human, a third sphere, the religious, is required. Because this absolute duty to God brings us an experience of humanity as inhumane, it cannot be formulated in any words without a certain convolution, and with the convolution there is only misunderstanding for those around us. If Abraham’s situation is understood solely in aesthetic and ethical terms, Abraham loses his humanity; for his intentions and actions are too monstrous to be considered human. They are worse than evil dare imagines to be. There is no purpose in Abraham’s potential murder of Isaac other than murder for the sake of murder. Evil is born out of a misplaced ideology. In Abraham’s case, there is no ideology that the aesthetic or the ethical can provide. For Abraham, putting this situation into words that will only be understood by Sarah or Isaac in terms of the aesthetic or the ethical is wholly detrimental to the faiths of those around him.

            Abraham’s final movement separates two distinct forms of infinity: the ethical and the religious. The ethical is infinity that is observed and seen as infinite. It has a beginning, but has no end. It began with the beginning of humanity and unfolded itself through generations until it became what is understood between people as what is truly good or bad. It allows for a form of objectivity among people. If I say it is wrong to kill your child, ethics agrees; and people, informed by ethics, also agree. However, the infinite as immeasurable only takes place within the religious. There is no beginning and there is no end. Essentially, the differentiation of the two types of infinite expressed by the ethical and the religious is exemplified in mathematical terms when the difference between a ray and a line is understood. A ray has a set point in which it begins and then continues onward infinitely in one direction. A line infinitely continues in both directions. In attempting to explain this with the terms that de Silentio lays out, expressing the ethical is like expressing a ray that began and now continues infinitely. In expressing the religious, we express the line, as God is understood to be outside of time, and therefore to have no beginning or no end.

            Indeed it can be found that beyond just the aesthetic and the ethical, a form of religious relation must also exist. If it is said that for something to be understood it needs correct context then faith is no exception to this rule. However, the context is not to be found within the finite, or our own daily interaction with the infinite as the ethical. As Abraham shows us his faith by virtue of the absurd, this is how faith is to be found in all situations. Faith is an expression of helplessness in the sense that it is admittance from an individual that he or she cannot stay within his or her own means to understand everything. Even in this admittance of not understanding, one does not gain understanding, but yet chooses to embrace a paradox that puts the individual above the ethical in relation to the absolute. It is as de Silentio points out, “during all this time [Abraham] had faith that God would not demand Isaac of him, and yet he was willing to sacrifice him if it was demanded… He climbed the mountain, and even in the moment when the knife gleamed he had faith- that God would not require Isaac” (35-36). Abraham does not ever understand why, nor does he question it. Yet somehow he expects both to sacrifice Isaac and to get Isaac back. This is faith; and it is in this faith that we encounter our own helplessness in the face of the immeasurable. 

Leibniz' Metaphysics: The Problem of Omnipotence and Omni-benevolence

           In Christian Theology one can never escape attempting to answer the question, “If God is omnipotent, all benevolent, and omniscient, why are pain, suffering, and evil in the world he watches over?” What Leibniz offers in the Discourse on Metaphysics is this answer: because it is necessary. For Leibniz, it is necessary that one person suffer if it means the world will benefit from it. As Leibniz states in the Theodicy, if there is “an infinitude of possible worlds… God must have chosen the best” (162). This idea, however, presents the key problem to Leibniz’ view of God as a perfect being and God as upholding the theodicy. I contend that Leibniz’ viewpoint allows for God to be either omnipotent or omnibenevolent, but not both. An omnipotent god could create a world any way it desired, allowing only evil, allowing only good, or a mixture of both. A god that possess creating power but is only omnibenevolent would, in support of Leibniz, create the best possible world for his creation to live in, but remain powerless to stop its corruption. Leibniz’ view of God relies on too many exceptions for God (and only for God) to remain perfect.

            Leibniz’ view of God, and how a perfect God can coincide with evil in the world, predicates upon the principle of sufficient reason. This is simply to say everything that comes into existence must have a necessary cause for existing. As Leibniz writes in The Monadology, God is a “necessary substance” in almost an Aristotelian sense of necessity (124). God is necessary as a substance because there must be a “final cause” (124). God’s existence in itself “is a simple consequence of its being possible” and that God has sufficient reason for himself (125). Sufficient reason is truly what Leibniz’ theology is based upon; however this principle cannot exclusively apply to God and still be taken seriously. What is sufficient reason for anything if it is simply to say that because something is possible, it therefore exists because it is necessary? What is worth being deemed necessary? I understand that the monad God is not only sufficient cause for creation, but also for what is to be considered what all truth is based upon, but Leibniz’ principle is too open ended to simply posit God as the only substance that is sufficient in itself to provide enough reason for all of existence yet not powerful enough to create an absolutely perfect world that reflects God as upholding the theodicy.

            Peter Loptson states in the introduction to Discourse on Metaphysics that “there are many different kinds of perfection, all of which God possesses” (59). I think Leibniz would agree to this statement simply because all “contingent truths” really on sufficient reason and God is sufficient reason in himself (124). Every form of perfection requires a definition which is the truth of that perfection, since God is necessary, for Leibniz, to provide a basis for these truths, God possesses all forms of truth and all forms of perfection. This is a key issue as to why the fact that suffering and pain exist is a violation to the theodicy and why this world cannot be the best of all possible worlds. If God possesses all forms of perfection then he also possesses the ability to make a perfect world. Leibniz, I believe, would intercept my claim here to say that this is a perfect world because to suppose that there is a better world is to posit that God acted with less perfection that he is capable of. If I was to accept Leibniz’ position I would have to say that God must either be only omnipotent or only omnibenevolent, but not both. The problem with Leibniz’ view is the fact that Leibniz supposes omnipotence. If God is truly all-powerful then God would automatically have the resources necessary to create a world that did not require suffering. To return to the example used in my introduction, in Leibniz’ view it is necessary that one person suffer for the good of all creation. There is simply not enough to go around in the world. For example, if there were two people in the entire world, and the world was created with only ten dollars, no more, no less, both people could have equal money at five dollars apiece, or one person could have more than that at the other person’s expense; consequently, there is no situation in which both people can have ten dollars. If God is truly omnipotent and omnibenevolent, he automatically would have the ability to create more money; allowing each person to have equality.

            To suppose that God has created the best possible world with evil in it, yet that God is both all-powerful and all-benevolent is essentially a contradiction. I agree with Leibniz “that one acts imperfectly if he acts with less perfection than he is capable of” (61). Perhaps that is why I so wholeheartedly disagree with his view of God. Leibniz supposes a God who is imperfect by the very definition Leibniz defines him as perfect with. There is no situation in which an omnibenevolent, omnipotent being has no other choice but to deem it necessary to create a situation that inflicts suffering upon persons. That is the eternal problem in the theodicy, if a being is omniscient, that being knows everything that is and could be. If that being is also omnibenevolent, that being would know of a situation in which there is only good. If that being is also omnipotent, then that being would have the power to create a situation in which it knew that everything would be good. If the being could not, then it is not omnipotent because omnipotence would allow it to forever create a new situation in which everything is good. If a being has no limits to its power and is benevolent then it can only be perceived as imperfect if it does not act with the full extent of its perfection. The Orthodox Christian God as the theodicy is only perfect in its imperfection.

            Perhaps I write on this subject in a way that is too certain and too dogmatic. However, Leibniz reveals his own certainty of his methodology at the end of the Discourse. The problem with Leibniz’ own certainty is defined previously with his writing “To know in particular, however, the reasons that have moved him to choose this order of the universe, to permit sin, to dispense his salutary grace in a certain manner- this passes the capacity of the finite mind” (62). I agree with Leibniz. Humans cannot fathom true omnipotence. However, we can encounter the idea of it and engage it. Omnipotence is truly a quality of God, however, not the quality of the God that potentially made this world if we are to believe him to also be benevolent. 

I'll Pray For You

          I stumbled upon an article earlier this week that outlined the particular issue of a man who had recently told his fundamentalist parents that he was gay. The story really upset me (as such stories always do) and also made me think about the phrase that truly caused the man so much pain. The phrase, which was included at the end of so many letters written by his mother and father, was the very common "I'll pray for you." The problem with this seemingly caring sentiment is the fact that it is horribly insulting to the person who it was told to because of a reason that the person who gave the sentiment sees as a fundamental flaw. When someone is about to take a test and is stressed, or someone is in pain after an injury and is feeling the emotional trauma of thinking through the ramifications of the injury (such as an athlete who hurts his or her knee) saying the phrase, "I'll pray for you" is entirely appropriate and helpful thing to say. It is comforting to the emotions. It is sentiment that you care about what is ailing them. 

          However, when you say this phrase to a person because you feel that they have a fundamental flaw about them, the phrase becomes one of the most hurtful things you could ever say to another person. If you believe God designed people and knew them before they were even born, why do you feel that God made a mistake in making them gay? It is an absolutely despicable attitude. It's analogous to a white person telling a black person that he'll pray for him because he is not white. The phrase, in this way, becomes "I will pray for my idea of you." When you pray that someone will change an inherent quality about them, you have ceased to care about who they actually are. You only care about who you think they should be. 

          This is multiplied when placed in a family setting. When you write to your family member and say "I will pray for you" because he or she is gay you have ceased caring for who they actually are. You do not love the person they are. You despise it. You only love your own idea of them and what they "should" be in your eyes. It is like a parent who raises a child to become what he or she could not as a child. That parent then judges that child's success along the lines of what success they achieve. There is no actual way to meet the parent's approval because the bar is set too high. It is like attempting to reach the outside of a circle when all you can do is take a step halfway to the outside every time. When you create an idol of what you think a person should be, you cease to love that person and only love the idol because the idol is more fulfilling.

           So the question is put into your relationships with those around you: Who do you love? The person as they are, or the idol as you wish them to be?

I am (God): Certainty that God Does (Not) Exist

          Perhaps this post will have a bit more of a personal feel to it. No, scratch that thought. This post will most certainly have a personal touch to it. I write this in response to an issue that occurred within my life yesterday. If you're not aware of this, then believe me when I tell you, Arkansas is not a place where freethinking is exactly... encouraged. Half of Americans see unbelief, which they define as atheism, as something wholly detrimental to society (when it is in fact just the opposite, see: Denmark). Most of those Americans will not go far enough in their own thinking to determine a difference between atheism and unbelief, seeing them only as identical. Therefore, any form of unbelief has an above average chance of being greeted with hostility, even in an urban area where there is more of an abundance of education. My idea is that unbelief acknowledges that there was at one point something to believe in, or even that there potentially remains something to believe in. Atheism, as I define it, is the distinct absence of belief; a rejection of any idea of God. For Atheism, there is not anything to believe in at all. Now let us go to Arkansas, perhaps even the Bible Belt in general. This is a place where to be religious means to be Christian, in many cases; and to be Christian where I am from is to believe in Biblical inerrancy and that faith is not faith unless it is a certainty. And there is where I must begin.

          To be certain is to transcend faith and move on into knowledge. Because God requires faith for belief in him, to say, "I am certain that God exists" is to become an anathema of Christianity. While opposites certainly depend on each other to create the chaos that creates new, faith and knowledge can not interact in such a way that faith becomes an asset of knowledge and knowledge an asset of faith unless there is only doubt to be reflected upon. This is to say that doubt is the place where faith and knowledge meet to interact. Without opening up an entire new topic, I must posit that to approach this subject from the idea of God in the New Testament is to attempt to fathom God as a supernatural being. To approach God as supernatural is  to admit that God can not be found in the natural world. Because the natural world is all that we can measure and experience, it is therefore impossible to know that God either exists or does not exist. Thus to be Christian and believe in God is to have faith. Faith is to believe something in the absence of proof. Yet it is a fundamental misunderstanding of faith that fuels the burning desire of a fundamentalist's "faith." To be certain that God exists is to deny the key fundamental element of the God of Christianity, the idea that he is supernatural. Therefore to be certain of God's existence is to deny his existence. The certainty of God is a danger to the world because it falsely gives people the "authority" to say whatever they want and to condemn whoever they want. John Caputo writes on this problem in On Religion where, in summary form, he states that people who know the will of God only know the will of themselves. There is no chance that they are wrong because God can not be wrong. The phrase "I am certain that God exists" only builds upon itself until it is revealed to say, "The god independent of me does not exist, I am God."

          With the title of this post I am hinting squarely at Peter Rollins' wonderful book, How (Not) to Speak of God. It is upon this book that I found myself on a quest with Rollins for a new form of Christianity that bothers to think about its beliefs. I am met with very real opposition to this idea from the people I hold most dear, and that is what troubles me the most. An article Rollins wrote for the Huffington Post in February outlines the idea that Christianity very much must go beyond belief into unbelief if it wants to believe at all. This excerpt assesses the situation of people such as myself: 

"This is why the people who leave fundamentalist communities are often not the ones who don't take it seriously enough, but those who do (and who are thus confronted with the true horror of the communities beliefs). In my own experience I, along with a few friends, began to break free of religious belief precisely because we were naïve ones who took the teaching of the church more seriously than those in the church. The people who continued in a mode of disbelief were the ones that stayed because they were able to protect themselves from the trauma of actually believing their beliefs."

This is the inherent problem of a set of "beliefs" that allow for no middle ground. It is not a supernatural sort of belief if it is altogether certain. A thing that one is certain about is something that does not require any thought. It is this all or nothing, black or white, chocolate or vanilla attitude that creates animosity between people. There is only "us" and "them" when a belief with no middle ground is taken up. I am reminded of the example my friend Jon always brings up when speaking of fundamentalism and church: "Why is it that even when a community has hundreds upon hundreds of churches in the area that preach about Jesus, if there is not a certain kind of, say, baptist church there, that area is still considered 'unchurched?'" It is a question that should have never had to have been asked. This is a problem that goes beyond splits in religious communities and extends well into those who deride the religious communities. I would contend that a theologian such as Rollins writes what he writes for the good of Christianity, to advance it. I know that my ideas are bent towards what I consider the health of Christianity. Yet to believe what Christianity leads us to actually believe is to become "them" and be exercised from "us."
          Christianity needs a gray area. What I hope I have not done with this is in any way condemn atheism as wholly negative, which it is not. I believe Slavoj Zizek says something along the lines of "only an atheist can be a true Christian" in his book The Puppet and the Dwarf. I say unbelief admits to a God (even be it a dead God), while Atheism admits to none. What certainty in belief in God does is condemn both, but eliminate God and replace him with oneself, something more dangerous than any other belief.