Bartok

A while back I read a book by John Shelby Spong which in part suggested that theism should be abolished and replaced by atheism. However, his version of atheism is a tad different than what one might immediately think of when hearing this term.

Spong defines a theist as one who believes in a set transcendental being, a god that exists as a thing "out there" or "up there." A theistic god would, for example, be the old bearded guy who sits on a throne "up there" who occassionally points his finger and makes it rain or something. Theistic gods include Zeus, Marduk, and even the warrior god of the Israelites, Yahweh.

Now, the way he defines atheist is "one who doesn't believe in a theistic god." This does not rule out any type of god, just ones that exist as set beings, loftier than humans, superhuman if you will. An atheist still possesses the potential to believe in a god, just not the ones that are an offshoot of humans. An atheist, by Spong's terms, could believe in a nontheistic god, one that resembles more of the characteristics of wind. They could believe in a god that, to use Spong's term, is the "ground of all being," something that is in all creation and is a part of it, rather than something that exists apart from it.

Your thoughts?

PS-I apologize if this topic or something similar to this topic has been done. I'm new here and haven't read every inch of the forum yet.

Eudaimonist

I wonder what Spong believes. Does he believe in a "non-theistic god"? I wonder how he would feel if we were to "abolish" non-theistic gods too, and just have real atheism.

David Bowden

I suppose that anyone can define 'theism' however they want to, but Spong's definition seems a bit strange and limited, and probably doesn't reflect the actual understanding of God that most 'theists' possess. Same thing regarding his ideas about atheism.

I understand 'theist' to refer to anyone who believes in 'theos' - the Greek word for 'god'. If a theist has some understanding of what he/she means by 'god'/'theos', then that would seem to be their 'theism'. That makes my atheism easy for me to define: after a considerable amount of serious reflection on the matter, I do not think that god-belief of any sort known to me is warranted.

But Webster's is more specific: theism is "belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of man and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world." Thus in common usage, theism refers to a specific subset of ideas about god, and a 'theist' would be somebody who holds those ideas. But:

I don't know any theists who believed in these anthropomorphisms, after they reached age 7 or so. I certainly didn't when I was a Christian. Spong's idea of what theists must think of God seems more than a little patronizing, and might be off-putting even to a lot of conservative Christians.

As I understand atheism (as atheists use the word! - there are some good articles in the Internet Infidels Library that examine the meaning of 'atheism'), it is merely the lack of belief in any 'theos' or 'god', whether 'theistic' or otherwise. (An agnostic can also be an atheist in this sense. Some atheists go farther and assert that no 'theos' of any sort exists. Agnostics cannot be atheists in this sense, because they are not sure that this assertion is warranted. Webster's includes both nuances in its definition.) So the basic idea of atheism is: "God exists" is not a true statement, concerning any definition of God put forward so far.

This is a long way from Spong's definition. Eudaimonia brings up a very good point: disbelief in Spong's 'new' God, along with all the rest of the gods, is what atheism really is. Atheism and the belief in any God are contradictory.

Spong is of course right in saying that atheists don't believe in a theistic god, but an atheist (by anyone else's definition) also doesn't believe in any other sort of god; Spong is therefore defining atheist in an unusual manner.

So now he's defined both theism and atheism differently from the way theists and atheists would describe themselves. This makes his whole case for a 'new' understanding of God very shaky - he doesn't show us that he really understands the 'old' understanding, but instead he sets up straw-man versions of theism and atheism. Bad form.

Well, I can't speak for all atheists, but I personally have yet to encounter a god or a description of god that didn't originate as 'an offshoot of humans'. I suppose I do have the potential to believe in a god - but the sort of 'belief' I mean is one that needs a foundation in more than sophistry or appeals to the unknown. Theisms of all sorts fail to justify themselves, in my opinion.

I believe in the wind as a meteorological phenomenon that can be studied and understood as part of reality. But I do not believe in a god, not even one with with some characteristics in common with the wind. If a god were introduced to me which jived wholly with my understanding of the rest of reality, I might believe in it - but only if belief was positively warranted, so any 'god of the gaps' or a "poetically" defined god who is 'like' real things but not really like them, is out.

And since Spong's theistic god idea is probably ridiculous even to most theists, I think they would have to classify themselves as atheists, by his definition. A tortured knot of semantics results from following Spong's redefinitions: atheist Christians who still believe in God, and atheists who are a lot less 'atheistic' than they thought they were.

OK, here's where Spong's definition of 'theism' shows itself to be just plain fruity. Above, I gave the dictionary definition of theism, and it's actually more in accord with Spong's "ground of all being" god than Spong's notion of theism-as-belief-in-an-old-beared-guy, etc.

His earlier bad form leads him to think he's invented a new 'God' which is really just the same old God, warmed over and described as "non-theistic". Had Spong started with a more representative definition of 'theism,' I don't think he would have had a thesis at all; as it is, his thesis is actually misleading and ultimately meaningless, a non-contribution to the difficult debates that rage inside fence-sitting Christians.

(Does that make Spong an athesisist or a nonthesisist? )

My verdict: Spong is trying hard to redefine God so that it's more palatable for a more 'spiritualist' generation - he's sincerely trying to reach those who've been alienated by the church's stupidity, but in the end he's only saying the same thing that the more liberal theists have been saying for a long time about God, and he risks alienating and confusing both theists and atheists in the process, for no good reason. It's just sophistry, in the end.

I've skimmed three or four of his books, and while it's obvious that Spong yearns for a 'true' church that integrates the understanding we get from various disciplines, I don't think he's found a way: his books show the absurdity of traditional Christianity without showing what truths a 'true' Christianity would really assert (maybe Unitarianism?), and as such they almost seem like open invitations to intelligent fence-sitters to just reject the whole Christian religion.

-Wanderer
[edited because 2:00 AM is a very bad time to think grammatically.]

[ March 17, 2002: Message edited by: wide-eyed wanderer ]</p>

joedad

I'd certainly agree with that summation.

Spong rails primarily against literalism, and the orthodox theology that it spawns. His notion of what constitutes a god is more horizontal than vertical, and he just detests the self perpetuating hierarchichal structures, doctrines and dogmas that institutionalized western religion has created over the centuries.

Spong comes across to me as a scientific pantheist, or maybe an "atheologist."

joe

DMB

Although I am an atheist and feel convinced that the conventional anthropomorphic gods of conventional religions simply do not exist other than in the minds of their followers, I am agnostic with regard to a non-theist god which is some sort of essence of nature and does not exhibit human emotions etc.

Bartok

DMB, you just described the views of theistic and non-theistic gods much better than I did, and your post was much shorter!

And Spong would go with the latter, obviously.

Good thoughts by all so far. I'm actually surprised by atheistic responses to Spong, as I figured they might be more open to Spong's redefining of what God is. But in a way, as has been said, he could just be seen as redefining the term "atheist."

At any rate, I'll post more later. I have a paper to complete right now.

P.S. DMB, would your username happen to stand for a certain musical group?

Skepticwithachainsaw

Well I don't really see the point of believing in a non-anthropomorphic god, I suppose it may help overcome some uncertainty over where everything came from and provide a neat little explanation for some of the "apparent order" in the world.
Still it begs the question of where it came from, and how it could develop intelligence, an identity and ideas, and the like if it had no environment to relate too.

As an agnostic I have to admit that I don't know if there is some sort of Hyper Intelligent being "outside" of the universe, however I see no reason why it should posses attributes that resemble anything like a human personality.
I also doubt that it would view humans (if it was even aware of our existence&#8230 as more than we view bacteria and insects, if at all.

Would good would attempting to pander to it's ego through worship achieve?
For starters I don't think it would have one… (unlike Jehovah&#8230
How could you create a standard of living or a belife in an afterlife with such an detached and inhumman god.

Basically it is less of a Religion but more of a pesedo-philosophical filler for some inconvenient questions that we don't know the answeres to.

D.H. Cross

I'd say that any "generative" non-anthropomorphic force would be beyond the word "god". This force would be impersonal, perhaps be equated with consciousness qua consciousness, before categories of thought or the development of ego. And yet, this consciousness would be all-pervading, not good or evil, but only "creative". In metaphorical language, multiplicity as a principle of nature flows out of total emptiness. I use Emptiness in a paradoxical sense to connote the Source of All, but I could avoid the word pantheistically. Although myriad forms come into being through this impersonal Force {spirit in action) it is not purely teleological. "It" does not hold any goal outside of complexity, culmination and then entropy. Hindu myths symbolize this cycle with the tale of Vishnu sleeping; a new universe is born and destroyed with each sleep cycle.

"IT" came from nowhere, from an almost incomprehensible singularity. The conceptual black-hole of Emptiness, out of which explodes All. It is mystery. I use very typical poetic language, but not in the New Age sense which tends to place humans as the ultimate generative source. You've heard the slogan, "you create your own reality", often said by advocates of "quantum" new age crap.

I don't think it does.

We "are" IT. I submit that this self-aware consciousness, this "noosphere" we collectively generate, is what defines us as trans-biosphere creatures. Minds as egos are epiphenomenona of the brain, but pure consciocouness infuses the physical matter with a light (to use a common metaphor here) that permeates all.

A belief in an afterlife I doubt. A standard of living, if you mean morals, is proscribed by the poles of health versus sickness. Healthy people are kind and compassionate, and sick people suffer from "afflictive" emotions such as hate and unrestrained anger. So "good" can be loosely defined as that which is healthy (in a pan-human sense), and "bad" can be loosely defined as anything destructive to human health. This includes negative emotions and stress.

I don't know that people like Tillich can be considered "pseudo-philosophical" rightfully. I like the idea of pure consciousness being the source of all, but at once very mysterious.

[ April 11, 2002: Message edited by: D.H. Cross ]

[ April 11, 2002: Message edited by: D.H. Cross ]

[ April 11, 2002: Message edited by: D.H. Cross ]</p>

Spirit Branded

Hello Wide-Eyed Wanderer (not Rainbow Walker by any chance?)

You said :-

Well, I can't speak for all atheists, but I personally have yet to encounter a god or a description of god that didn't originate as 'an offshoot of humans'.

May I recommend the first chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John.

If all things were made by God he can hardly be an "offshoot" of humanity.

Peace

Spirit Branded

Philosoft

Well, I'm not Rainbow Walker but I know a tautology when I see one. When you say, "if all things were made by God" what you're really saying is, "if all things were made by the [allegedly] existing being described in the Bible." This assumes that said being has already been shown to exist when it has not. All you really have is a character in a book, which is easily capable of being created by a man.