A Response to Mr. Tom Harpur - Part II
I am saddened see that Mr. Harpur is among the liberal theologians of our day who submit to the inconsistancies, incoherency and existentially unlivable claims of popularized secularist and humanistic thought.
FIrst and foremost, Mr. Harpur misses the inconsistancy with pure evolution and theism. There are those who claim to be Thestic Evolutionists, but the position is logically inconsistant simply because Darwinian Evolution teaches that evolution is a blind process, based purely on natural actions and reactions whereas theism teaches that God created life. A Creator and life coming about on its own are mutually exclusive ideas.
He goes on to say that "The idea that we must leave this task to God... is in reality an abrogation of both our own potential and our responsibility... believing that the 'mind of the universe regards us as children to be dragged willy-nilly along,' is a formula for disaster."
Harpur is proposing a reverse God-of-the-gaps theory by claiming that when human agents are at work, then Gd is not; and when Gd is at work then human agents are not. This is a false dichotomy that runs contrary to the claims of Christian theism, in which God commands that people are to help the widows, look out for the orphans, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, etc. The Christian view of doing good things ought to be that, in light of the grace God has shown us, we ought to show that grace to the world. Therefore, believing in God is not detrimental to our "owning up" to "our end of the bargain," as it were in taking care of one another or our environment. Indeed, Mr. Harpur has forgotten that many Christian saints are saints because they do those things that he says believing in God prevents us from doing!
Inasmuch as God regarding us as children, this is true only as to say that a true, mature love of God will be that like a child for his or her parent; guileless, simple, strong. God does not intellectual children or people who do not take responsibility like children.
"...some progress is being made. We are evolving steadily..." Progress? If there is one constant in all of history, it is that humanity has not "progressed" at all. In his heyday, I believe it was Camut who said that the fundamental question in life was meaning, anything else was secondary, and untilt hat fundamental issue of meaning was resolved he didn't care for the answers to the other queries.
If we have progressed, why are we still asking the same questions?
If we have progressed, why has human behavior not changed? For all of our innovations in science and various other inventions, and so on, we may have improved the quality of life for some. But we have also used that technology for rather poor means as well - the casualties of WWI and WWII, along with the organized attempt at the mass extinction of the Jewish race, just for starters. Harpur may go on about how we have to "seize control of our own evolution," but the inevitable result of whenever mankind does such is never, ever a good thing.
"We do not trust our time. And the reason we do not trust our time is that it is we who have made the time. We have played the hero's part, mastered the villain's, and become gods. And we do not trust ourselves as gods, because deep inside we know who we really are. In the old days the gods did not frighten us; there were Furies to pursue the Hitlers, and Athenas to restore the truth. But now that we are gods ourselves, we bear the knowledge for ourselves - like that old Greek hero who, having accomplished the labors, learned that it was he himself who had killed his sons." - Archibald Macleish
In fact, Harpur's constant rallying cry of controlling our own evolution reminds me of nothing so much as Nietzsche's superman, which reminds me of nothing so much as Hitler's militarization of that idea, of a superman (a super race of the super people - the Aryan people) who would control his own fate, and determine for himself what was right and wrong. Harpur says that we need to be "constantly confronted with the truth that we are the bearers of the divine presence of the living God within our hearts and minds." Much like Conrad's Mr. Kurtz, who, like Nietzsche's and Hitler's superman, had "shaken himself free from the dust of the earth."
Harpur here misunderstands an obvious Biblical truth. People are made in God's image and because of that, all possess essential dignity. He is correct there. But God never says that He is within us, as Harpur claims, a very New Age sense of us being deities in a temporary state of amnesia "...to have grasped that the secret of our humanity lies in our potential for divinity...". Rather, for the CHristian, Jesus Christ dwells within the believer in virtue of the Holy SPirit, who then goes about the process of sanctification - that is, of making that person more and more into the image of Jesus Christ.
If humanity is not just made in the image of God (with which the Bible agrees) but we carry this "Spark of the divine," in that we, are somehow also divine, then you can be sure that not all of us will be as god, nor will that Harpur's idea of mankind becoming God remain in such an abstract form; some actual men will become God. As Malcolm Muggeridge put it, ..."it will either be the megalomaniac or the erotomaniac, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallis; Hitler of Hugh Heffner."
And somehow, this basic foudnation of us recognizing that we are divine and becoming that divinity is "essential for any lasting world peace" even though all of history cries out that when man becomes god, some actual men become god, and people always suffer. That mankind should strive to be divine is, in fact, the basic foundation for all sin. What did Satan say in the Garden of Eden? The reason God told you not to eat of the fruit is because, on the day that you do, you will become as God. And why should you let God be God? Why don't you be God? Or certainly, at least the God of yourself!
Harpur is correct in one thing, at least. "The result is not a boring homogeneity or sameness." No, the result is conflict, suffering, pain, alienation and death.
Finally, for a theologian to claim that all religions are fundamentally the same is rather astonishing. Harpur's bold assertion that "The more I study other faiths the more I am impressed with the universality of the central belief in each..." is obviously false. Especially since all religions, by definition, are different religions because they disagree about fundamental truths. It is not possible that God be limited and infinite. It is not possible that one God and many gods exist. I am reminded of the article "The Creed for the Modern Thinker" by Steve Turner, when he wrote: "We believe that all religions are the same, at least the ones that we read were. They all believe in love and goodness, and only differ on matters of Heaven, Hell, sin, God and salvation."
FIrst and foremost, Mr. Harpur misses the inconsistancy with pure evolution and theism. There are those who claim to be Thestic Evolutionists, but the position is logically inconsistant simply because Darwinian Evolution teaches that evolution is a blind process, based purely on natural actions and reactions whereas theism teaches that God created life. A Creator and life coming about on its own are mutually exclusive ideas.
He goes on to say that "The idea that we must leave this task to God... is in reality an abrogation of both our own potential and our responsibility... believing that the 'mind of the universe regards us as children to be dragged willy-nilly along,' is a formula for disaster."
Harpur is proposing a reverse God-of-the-gaps theory by claiming that when human agents are at work, then Gd is not; and when Gd is at work then human agents are not. This is a false dichotomy that runs contrary to the claims of Christian theism, in which God commands that people are to help the widows, look out for the orphans, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, etc. The Christian view of doing good things ought to be that, in light of the grace God has shown us, we ought to show that grace to the world. Therefore, believing in God is not detrimental to our "owning up" to "our end of the bargain," as it were in taking care of one another or our environment. Indeed, Mr. Harpur has forgotten that many Christian saints are saints because they do those things that he says believing in God prevents us from doing!
Inasmuch as God regarding us as children, this is true only as to say that a true, mature love of God will be that like a child for his or her parent; guileless, simple, strong. God does not intellectual children or people who do not take responsibility like children.
"...some progress is being made. We are evolving steadily..." Progress? If there is one constant in all of history, it is that humanity has not "progressed" at all. In his heyday, I believe it was Camut who said that the fundamental question in life was meaning, anything else was secondary, and untilt hat fundamental issue of meaning was resolved he didn't care for the answers to the other queries.
If we have progressed, why are we still asking the same questions?
If we have progressed, why has human behavior not changed? For all of our innovations in science and various other inventions, and so on, we may have improved the quality of life for some. But we have also used that technology for rather poor means as well - the casualties of WWI and WWII, along with the organized attempt at the mass extinction of the Jewish race, just for starters. Harpur may go on about how we have to "seize control of our own evolution," but the inevitable result of whenever mankind does such is never, ever a good thing.
"We do not trust our time. And the reason we do not trust our time is that it is we who have made the time. We have played the hero's part, mastered the villain's, and become gods. And we do not trust ourselves as gods, because deep inside we know who we really are. In the old days the gods did not frighten us; there were Furies to pursue the Hitlers, and Athenas to restore the truth. But now that we are gods ourselves, we bear the knowledge for ourselves - like that old Greek hero who, having accomplished the labors, learned that it was he himself who had killed his sons." - Archibald Macleish
In fact, Harpur's constant rallying cry of controlling our own evolution reminds me of nothing so much as Nietzsche's superman, which reminds me of nothing so much as Hitler's militarization of that idea, of a superman (a super race of the super people - the Aryan people) who would control his own fate, and determine for himself what was right and wrong. Harpur says that we need to be "constantly confronted with the truth that we are the bearers of the divine presence of the living God within our hearts and minds." Much like Conrad's Mr. Kurtz, who, like Nietzsche's and Hitler's superman, had "shaken himself free from the dust of the earth."
Harpur here misunderstands an obvious Biblical truth. People are made in God's image and because of that, all possess essential dignity. He is correct there. But God never says that He is within us, as Harpur claims, a very New Age sense of us being deities in a temporary state of amnesia "...to have grasped that the secret of our humanity lies in our potential for divinity...". Rather, for the CHristian, Jesus Christ dwells within the believer in virtue of the Holy SPirit, who then goes about the process of sanctification - that is, of making that person more and more into the image of Jesus Christ.
If humanity is not just made in the image of God (with which the Bible agrees) but we carry this "Spark of the divine," in that we, are somehow also divine, then you can be sure that not all of us will be as god, nor will that Harpur's idea of mankind becoming God remain in such an abstract form; some actual men will become God. As Malcolm Muggeridge put it, ..."it will either be the megalomaniac or the erotomaniac, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallis; Hitler of Hugh Heffner."
And somehow, this basic foudnation of us recognizing that we are divine and becoming that divinity is "essential for any lasting world peace" even though all of history cries out that when man becomes god, some actual men become god, and people always suffer. That mankind should strive to be divine is, in fact, the basic foundation for all sin. What did Satan say in the Garden of Eden? The reason God told you not to eat of the fruit is because, on the day that you do, you will become as God. And why should you let God be God? Why don't you be God? Or certainly, at least the God of yourself!
Harpur is correct in one thing, at least. "The result is not a boring homogeneity or sameness." No, the result is conflict, suffering, pain, alienation and death.
Finally, for a theologian to claim that all religions are fundamentally the same is rather astonishing. Harpur's bold assertion that "The more I study other faiths the more I am impressed with the universality of the central belief in each..." is obviously false. Especially since all religions, by definition, are different religions because they disagree about fundamental truths. It is not possible that God be limited and infinite. It is not possible that one God and many gods exist. I am reminded of the article "The Creed for the Modern Thinker" by Steve Turner, when he wrote: "We believe that all religions are the same, at least the ones that we read were. They all believe in love and goodness, and only differ on matters of Heaven, Hell, sin, God and salvation."
posted by Brian at 12:08 PM
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