It’s always funny to me, as a Christian person, to find agnostics doing a better job of explaining Christianity than those of us who claim the name.
(And, no, I am not writing this post to maintain that John Scalzi is a some kind of doesn’t-know-it-yet-but-once-he-figures-it-all-out-he’ll-know Christian. He’s agnostic. He says it, I believe it, that settles it, hah-hah.)
I simply appreciate that he thinks about things. He knows the Bible well enough to find verses and think about them, and really apply what he knows to things. He thinks about systems of thought, about ethics, and you can see the evidence of his background in philosophy in this post. John Scalzi actually applies reason and logic to a system of belief – something that is vastly missing from the majority of belief systems and denominations.
And, when was the last time the average Christian person put as much thought into an agnostic or philosophical system of belief, with the end result not to debunk it, but to examine its strong points?
Thinking about it, my favorite columnist, Jon Carroll – also agnostic. One of my favorite authors, Sir Terry Pratchett – also agnostic. Which, as a Christian, you might think might make me nervous. (It probably makes my parents nervous. Sorry, guys.) Except, it makes me thoughtful, more than anything.
I am so against anti-intellectualism. It is like a deadly gas stealing all of the breathable oxygen from intelligent discourse in this country. It permeates American culture – and I know I sound like my professor, Micheline – yet another agnostic – but I will also just say flat out that anti-intellectualism encourages lazy thinkers, and lazier readers. (Oh, how Micheline railed at us for being lazy readers! She might roll her eyes at me, even now, except I am reading A Hard Book, so feel personally vindicated this week. This week only, but anyway. One book at a time.) Anti-intellectualism prefers to deal with people on an emotional level, where facts are easily warped, and people give up thinking things through for the heady rush of sentiment… and since I’m a closet sentimentalist, lead always with my heart, with my brain chiming in a distant second, I deeply admire people who can put aside the first hot blooded leap to whatever conclusion, stand their ground, settle into themselves, and give things a thorough dissection with their minds. It is a valuable, valuable thing, this lack of rush to sentiment.
(Case in point: this post. I had strong feelings about John’s post, and rushed to write this in response, and, in the time it’s taken me to work out what I want to say from an incoherent emotive rush words, I’ve kind of lost my plot. Emotional reasoning! Kind of unreasonable, yeah.)
A lot of people fear logic – respond to it with hostility, and it seems that they distrust those who rely on it. Which I’ve honestly never understood. Later in Matthew – the twenty-second chapter, the thirty-seventh verse – we’re reminded to love the Lord our God with all of our hearts – and with all of our minds. There is never going to be a call for all one or all the other sort of thinking. The best system of belief is both heartfelt and thoroughly intellectually mindful.
“But I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.”
~ Galileo Galilei, in a letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615
Oh, Signor Galilei. Do you mean to say that we’re not going to get a sudden bolt from the blue to tell us what to do? Do you mean we’ll have to think for ourselves… by ourselves?? Are you stating that we must develop a sense of critical inquiry? Why… yes. Yes, indeed. And that sense of critical inquiry is what it took, to ground a man who saw things counter to what he had been taught was The Truth Of The World. He believed strongly that his God required him to think – and he did.
And, it cost him.
But, it was a price he was willing – at least for as much as he could be – to pay.
I grew up loving reading somehow despite the fact that in our home words were rationed, and reading was something strictly overseen. Things deemed “appropriate” or “inappropriate” were not discussed so much as were heavy, unspoken Expectations of “You Know What Is Right” put out there. But, I didn’t…know what was right, I mean. I still don’t. “Right” isn’t always this one, clear thing. Like Mr. Scalzi does here, we have to think about Right. Moral righteousness is not inherent within our makeup, even if we are born and raised with church. And yet, how little time was spent teaching me personally to adjudge right from wrong. How little of the spirit of critical inquiry necessary to living an “examined” life is actually encouraged and taught – how few of us know the value of critical thinking. How few of us know how to think.
Matthew 6 isn’t the only place in the Bible which encourages its readers to examine situational ethics and good judgment. But, it’s as good a place as any to start.
I enjoyed Scalzi’s entry and yours. I could stand to apply a little more logic to my life at times, I know. It makes me think, too, of this essay I read yesterday, “The Power of ‘I Don’t Know,'” which is something I feel all the time (http://nyti.ms/15VIiT8). I am glad that there are people in the world who enjoy thinking and wrestling with problems and who challenge me to do the same.
By the way, love Scalzi’s bio (“I enjoy pie.”).
“I don’t know” is something that a lot of people shun and fear – they want so badly to know everything and to appear confident in their knowing that they rush past the moments they should savor, those of having one foot in neither world, and standing on boundary lines, being neither one thing nor the other.
That just doesn’t happen so poignantly very often, and it’s a shame to pretend it’s not happening. There is life and knowledge and sheer electricity in those in-between spaces of confusion. If we could only relax and let ourselves feel and see them…
My favorite version of the New Testament is Thomas Jefferson’s cut and past job–it removes the miraculous, and leaves the words of wisdom that even those who cannot believe can ponder and learn from. Although I do, like Scalzi, appreciate the language of the King James Bible very much!
Removing the miraculous actually sounds a little sad – but I take your point, that he’s left in what you feel you can accept as fact, without needing to apply faith.