The Faith of a Seeker: Integrating Science and Scholarship with Christian Experience
284
The Faith of a Seeker: Integrating Science and Scholarship with Christian Experience
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781595557582 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Elm Hill |
| Publication date: | 07/31/2018 |
| Sold by: | HarperCollins Publishing |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 284 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
| Age Range: | 15 - 18 Years |
About the Author
Robert Hunt Morris, II, a lifelong spiritual seeker, encountered Jesus at age nine. He left orthodox Christianity in his 20s, but never lost his love of Jesus. He was an active Quaker for 15 years, explored Eastern religions, and enjoys woodworking, writing, and editing. He married Jeanne Elizabeth Sokol, to whom three children were born. They lived from New York City to Oklahoma, and finally Tennessee in 1996. Today he is active in an evangelical United Methodist church
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CHAPTER 1
The Seeker and the Search
The Challenge
In the twenty-first century, it's easiest for those who've seriously studied science, and who at the same time lack real religious experience, to believe there's no God and no spiritual certainty. And even for us who've had some sense of God in our youth, encountering the larger world and scientific theories can make us doubt everything we previously believed.
Why is this so? For primitive people, for those living in a homogenous religious environment, and for little children, it's easy to accept God or gods as the explanation of phenomena: "God made you"; "God made the sunshine"; "God's going to make you well." For these, God is the unquestioned source of all good and the power behind all of creation.
But to us of the new millennium, science seems to promise (if not now, soon) an explanation for everything: "You're the product of a long evolutionary process." "The sun is a medium-sized star." "The doctor is going to operate on you so you can get well." Religion is considered not as a matter of truth but as a cultural and social phenomenon, and personal faith is often viewed as a weakness or even as a delusion.
Many of us today have no felt need of God. Why do we need God when we're healthy, have full bellies, enjoy comfortable dwellings, steady incomes, and endless entertainment, and are fortunate to live in societies basically at peace? All of our material needs are met, so why should we even consider God?
Some of us are actually relieved no longer to answer to a higher power or being, and some even see the very idea of God as a pernicious superstition from a pre-scientific era — pernicious because it represents, they believe, an attempt to escape from their fate as animals and from responsibility to shape their own and their planet's destiny.
Even those who feel twinges of awe in cathedrals, whether those made by man or those made by nature, or who otherwise have moments of transcendence, may dismiss these feelings as childish reactions to the grand and the unusual.
Where's the place for God when our deepest needs and yearnings are considered to be merely psychological and social, and when the spiritual impulse is dismissed as a false attempt to find meaning in the face of certain extinction or as a way to cope with guilt? Belief in life after death, says the naturalist, must be a mechanism to avoid facing our mortality.
The evil in the world makes it hard to believe that there's a loving God in control. Newspapers and streaming videos are filled with murders, tortures, abuses, and every kind of suffering and violence. Religious leaders seem to be as bad as the rest, and are perhaps the worst because — here I'm thinking of certain televangelists and mega-church pastors — they preach righteousness while being crudely self-serving and while exploiting their flocks. It's easy to conclude that if there is a God, God must be evil or impotent, or at least very cold to the suffering of both individuals and masses.
Ideologies and religions in our pluralistic society compete and clash for attention. Their claims pretty much cancel each other out; what one believes, the other denies. Opinions are relative, and (so the thinking goes) no one has a special claim on the truth. Christians seem no more moral than Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus. Why should we commit ourselves to any ideology or to any exclusive claim to truth?
Along with this, 200-plus years of critical studies have exploded the fundamentalist view that the Bible contains no error scientifically and historically. Most conservative Christian scholars accept this and most seminaries teach it, though pastors rarely will tell this to their congregations. One of the original tenets of Fundamentalism, that the Bible is "inerrant in its original manuscripts," betrays the truth that none of the original manuscripts have survived and that our existing texts are imperfect.
In sum, there are formidable obstacles today to a search for God and for ultimate truth. Our whole age seems to deny the ultimate, and in particular the claims of Christianity, which in spite of the phenomenal growth of Islam and of atheism in recent decades, is still the religion with the most adherents worldwide, the dominant faith of Westerners, and today growing rapidly in the Far East and in third-world countries.
One challenge to seekers, then, is whether they can step outside the prevailing general skepticism of our day and, without plunging headlong into a purely emotional experience, into some exotic cult, or into a superficially-appealing philosophy, open themselves to fresh insight and experience.
The Impulse to Seek
In the face of all the obstacles facing the spiritual seeker of the twenty-first century, why would one, and why should one, search for Truth, for God?
First, we seek, not because we casually decide to do so, thinking it will be pleasant or interesting, but because we're driven to it — it has become an imperative for us.
How has this happened? Our spirits are hungry; we've lost our equilibrium. A basic inner need is unmet; we're unfulfilled in some way, perhaps a way we can't define. Our hearts, our spirits cry out for more. If already religious, we've become disillusioned or have reached a point where the doctrines and rituals no longer satisfy. Even if we have a strong faith in God, the old learned formulas don't square with what we know of the world. On the other hand, if we're not religious, something either within or outside of us has shaken our complacency, generating a longing we were unaware of up to this point. We need answers to our deepest questions about reality. We need to know that life has a meaning and purpose that transcends our inevitable death. I need to know whether I have intrinsic value and whether life is worthwhile even when it's painful, difficult, and seemingly unrewarding. Is there any real hope for life?
The seeker, by definition, has at least a faint hope of finding some truth or guidance or comfort; otherwise he or she would have no will to seek. Hope says, "If I search, I may find! There just may be something out there, after all — something worth seeking for." Even when we seek out of desperation, we hold on to the possibility, however slight it may seem, that we'll find. The seeker wants to find — to find a transcendent reality, but at the same time she does not want to be deceived.
Animals seek instinctively. The trout will seek the bed where it was spawned. Hummingbirds and some butterflies will fly thousands of miles to places they've never been. It's the human instinct to seek for spiritual fulfillment. Even ancient art on rocks (in the Australian Outback, for example) is sometimes abstract, representing not nature but inner realities. Ten thousand years ago, humans treated their dead with dignity and prepared their bodies for an afterlife. Moral codes are very ancient; the Mosaic code, over 3000 years old, is by no means the oldest. People throughout history have sought (and they did so even in prehistoric times), not only to order society and to secure necessities, but also to find inner peace and transcendent meaning.
The human species is endowed with mental and physical capacities securing its position at the top of the animal kingdom, making it the dominant species on earth. Humans, although capable of destroying themselves and all of life, also have the capacity to study history and to imagine the past, stretching back to the very origin of the universe, and to the future, arcing to its apparently-certain death. Our bodies are only about six feet or two meters tall, but we can conceptualize our whole community, our whole state or province, our whole nation, the whole earth, even the whole cosmos. We reflect on our lives and foresee our own deaths; we can conceive of an eternity behind us and before us. We have a conscience, and we reflect on good and evil. Even atheists and agnostics exhibit strong beliefs in right and wrong and usually hold to some moral principles. We want to find meaning in reality, and especially meaning for our individual and group existence. This is a healthy instinct; it's part of who we are.
Not to seek spiritually is to deny the fullness of our humanity; it's to reduce life to mere existence, truncating our larger nature. It makes us animals pure and simple, only horribly aware of our mortality and of the meaninglessness of it all. We differ from other animals, and not just in having larger brains. Can we honestly deny that humans are spiritual beings? It's in our nature to seek for understanding and a greater life. Unless we're satisfied with what we've already received or have found, we are — consciously or unconsciously — seekers.
While all humans of normal intelligence surely ask questions about existence at some point in their lives, those whom I call seekers — true seekers — ask these questions with a persistence and an intensity that casual seekers do not. In this sense, seekers have what may be either a special curse or a special gift.
The Object of the Search
Various terms have been used to name the object of the spiritual search: Truth, Reality, God, the Ultimate, the Infinite, the Absolute, and so on. Let's examine the terms just listed and reflect on the rightful object of the spiritual search.
Truth is "conformity to knowledge, fact, actuality, or logic." To seek Truth — the ultimate or all-encompassing truth — is to evaluate very honestly our own experiences; the profound insights of others we admire and trust; the facts at our command, including those of history, science, and literature; and the revelations of the creative arts and music, in order to determine what's finally true and real. The truth we seek is the understanding that frees us, opens us to the possibilities of life, and gives us the power to discern and judge all things. Jesus of Nazareth said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31b–32).
Reality, in philosophy, is "the sum of all that is real, absolute, and unchangeable." Another meaning is "that which exists objectively and in fact." To seek for Reality is to seek for what's real, what actually exists, for what's there whether we like it or not. Seeking for reality implies that the seeker doesn't want to be fooled; he wants to face facts. If God really exists, he wants to know him; if not, he will accept this, too.
God is the traditional — and still almost the universal — word for the ultimate Being, the Creator, the Ruler of the universe, the supreme Power. The word "God" implies a definite entity or being with the qualities or powers of "the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions." The word is usually taken to mean a self-conscious being, indeed a Person (fully personal, but not human). We'll deal more extensively with the ways God can be understood in Chapter 6.
The Ultimate, as a noun, means "the basic or fundamental fact"; also "the final point; conclusive result; conclusion." To find the Ultimate is to reach the final truth, which is also the most basic or fundamental and underlying truth; it's to reach a conclusion. Is the ultimate nature of the universe positively good, is it indifferent, or is it evil? Is there an ultimate reality to be found, or does the best we can find remain partial, relative, and forever unsatisfying to our minds and spirits?
The Infinite is simply that which is not finite and is therefore limitless. The idea is that we humans may conceive of infinity, but we aren't infinite in any other sense. We're mortal, not — at least in my view, not intrinsically — immortal (see Chapter 9). We're confined to physical bodies that our spirits transcend momentarily and partially. But if a being existed that were unbounded in the ways in which we are bounded, that being would be an object of worship.
The Absolute is "perfect in quality or nature; complete." This comes from the realization that humans are not perfect in quality and are not complete, but that we long to be so. To qualify as a worthy object of search, the being with whom we seek to be united would need to have these qualities: absolute, perfect, complete.
It may not seem, at first, that the search would require an "object" at all. Perhaps we just want inner peace. If this is so, meditation, counseling, or a deep relationship with another person might provide the answer. Perhaps we just want to understand the world better; if so, the study of science and history may satisfy us. Perhaps we're trying to grab for any transcendent experience within reach; in this case, sex, drugs, or alcohol, or any passionate endeavor may temporarily "fix" us. But if we're searching for a coherent understanding of all of reality (inner and outer) and of the ultimate meaning of our personal lives within the context of all of history and in the light of religion, our search will go beyond the physical, beyond the personal, beyond the immediate.
How to Seek
This is perhaps so obvious as not to need comment; one seeks ... well, by seeking! We seek however we can, and that is the simple truth. Nevertheless, I'll offer some principles as well as suggestions and warnings gained through personal experience. These, along with the obvious lessons of history, may help you in a productive search.
In the 1960s, many college students and other young adults tried to "turn on, tune in, and drop out." They contrasted themselves to "straight" society; they advocated "free love" (promiscuous sex), smoked pot, dropped acid, and followed Eastern gurus in an attempt to break out of the norms and values of Western society and return to a purer, simpler way of life, closer to nature and more in touch with themselves. While there was some validity in their protests against the Vietnam War, the threat of a nuclear holocaust, and Wall Street exploitation, their hippie communes didn't last long, and their personal lives in the end were no better for the sex and drugs. Their search proved to be shallow, mainly an indulgence of flesh that led downward, not upward. Some of them dropped out of sight; some of their leaders later turned to business and politics and others to some form of religion.
I myself came of age in this generation. From 1964–1974, living in New York City, I was exposed to people from many countries and of different cultures and religions — people living diverse lifestyles. (I used to say, "New York is my university.") I attended sessions with several different gurus and read books on psychology, religion, and philosophy. Twice I even attended lectures at a school for Marxist Studies. I read some of Marx's Das Kapital and all of the "Little Red Book" by Mao Tse-Tung (Zedong). Having lost my belief in a God "out there," I was feeling my way for what seemed right and true, testing the gurus and different philosophies. When a young Marxist gave me a long and bitter monologue justifying his ideas, I realized that his whole philosophy was based on hate, on resentment. Instantly I was repelled and turned away from this program which claimed to be bettering society, my spirit recoiling at this approach to "truth."
Various individuals and groups search for God in other ways. In America, young people from Christian backgrounds, whose parents or grandparents are real or nominal Christians, may reject wholesale their own religious heritage. This often happens at college when they move away from home for the first time. The teaching of evolution and biblical criticism, without faith to balance it, takes its toll. Some professors have a particular axe to grind with traditional religion and especially with Christianity. They point out problems with the biblical text, the crimes committed in the name of God through the centuries, and the hypocrisy and criminal behavior of some Christians. At the same time, they may openly advocate alternative moral values. Other religions and philosophies are made to appear attractive and of equal or greater truth-value than Christianity. Absolute relativism is presented as the philosophy of the mature person, while the truth-claims of Christianity are simply dismissed. It's no wonder that skepticism flourishes on our major public and private campuses.
Young Christians without a firm grip on their faith are shaken to the core. They may begin a genuine search for truth, for reality, or for God outside the bounds of their inherited faith. Their seeking is earnest, yet specifically directed away from a deeper understanding of their original faith. But an honest search isn't a negative search, a search rooted in anger, fear, resentment, or rejection. Just as a white Southerner in the 1950s and '60s who was seeking truth about race relations had to admit personal prejudices, the seeker for truth has to acknowledge his hurts and resentments and not let them rule his judgment. He has to steer between an unthinking fundamentalism or cold formalism, on the one hand, and an equally unthinking rejection of religious experience and insight on the other.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Faith of a Seeker"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Robert H. Morris.
Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments, xi,
Foreword, xiii,
Introduction, xv,
1 The Seeker and the Search, 1,
2 Chaos to Cosmos, 17,
3 Evolution: The Current Debate, 31,
4 Evolution: The Evidence for Purpose, 77,
5 Evolution: The Vision of Teilhard de Chardin, 97,
6 God, 115,
7 Jesus: Messiah and Lord, 145,
8 The Holy Spirit, 167,
9 The Bible, 175,
10 The Supernatural, 211,
11 Our Human Condition, 233,
12 A Seeker's Life of Faith, 243,
13 Concluding Remarks, 251,
WORKS CITED, 255,
SELECTIVE INDEX, 261,