theological blather
Sep. 9th, 2013 12:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johncomicA Bible verse keeps popping back into my head and bothering me lately.
Proverbs 14:12 -- I'll quote it from the KJV since that's the version I was born and raised on: “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
I never see this verse discussed often, either inside or outside of Christendom, but it strikes me as a particularly crucial one. Over the years it has bothered me a lot, off and on, and lately there's a lot more on....
To me, the way that seemeth right can refer to both a way that makes sense and a way that feels right to your own inner moral compass. I feel that both of those are being addressed here. So what this is saying is that, if you try to figure out the Bible and/or religion by using your head, or your own sense of right and wrong, you will be led astray. Therefore, you can't trust your own reason or your own gut instinct. Does it feel wrong to you that, for example, an omnipotent God allows pain and suffering to befall people who don't deserve it? Doesn't matter! Don't listen to yourself: listen to us.
That's really the gist of this verse -- that, rather than wrestle with theological problems, we are to ignore them. This is the the sort of thinking that we associate with brainwashing cults, not something as “mainstream” as Christianity. And yet there it is, ready for the church to fall back on anytime someone raises an uncomfortable idea. Just listen, don't think.
Perhaps this makes it clearer for some people why it can be so difficult trying to reason with some fundamentalists -- because they are already geared to discount reasoned arguments, because the Bible instructs them to do so. Ditto with trying to touch their sense of compassion or justice or rightness. They refuse to consider arguments on those grounds.
This touches me in a different way, as well. I've known Christians who wrestle with the fact that they are gay, and yet they are told that the Bible teaches them that this is evil. And they're like “But this is just what I am! It's how I was made! How can that be wrong?” Well, here the Bible is telling us not to think... and yet I have always been a guy who thinks about things. It's one of the only things I'm good at, it's what I am. It's how I was made.
Situations like this lead us to either reject our faith early on, or wrestle with it (sometimes for decades) trying to resolve what we are told with the truth of what is in us. Colour me wrestling.
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Date: 2013-09-10 11:44 am (UTC)I abandoned my faith for this very reason. I often wish I had a strong faith, since I think it would be very comforting during difficult moments in my life. But I just can't subscribe to a belief system which so often seems cruel and unloving.
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Date: 2013-09-17 02:18 am (UTC)I remember when my dad had his stroke, wishing I had the faith that he was going to a better place rather than just dying and ceasing to exist as I believe actually happened. Faith would be great in times like those.
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Date: 2013-09-10 02:29 pm (UTC)"Can you specify a means by which I identify this way? Or a better way? Because I would prefer a way which seemeth right and the end thereof is the way of pie."
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Date: 2013-09-10 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-10 04:10 pm (UTC)This gives new meaning, of course, to the Eddie Izzard bit about cake or death. (Who knew he was a religious sage?)