The Semantics of Bart Ehrmann’s Faith and Theology
February 20, 08 by edThere’s a brief excerpt from theologian and agnostic Bart Ehrmann’s latest book God’s Problem at the Fresh Air web site where he was recently interviewed. Take a look at what Ehrmann has to say about faith:
“The problem of suffering became for me the problem of faith. After many years of grappling with the problem, trying to explain it, thinking through the explanations that others have offered—some of them pat answers charming for their simplicity, others highly sophisticated and nuanced reflections of serious philosophers and theologians—after thinking about the alleged answers and continuing to wrestle with the problem, about nine or ten years ago I finally admitted defeat, came to realize that I could no longer believe in the God of my tradition, and acknowledged that I was an agnostic: I don’t “know” if there is a God; but I think that if there is one, he certainly isn’t the one proclaimed by the Judeo-Christian tradition, the one who is actively and powerfully involved in this world. And so I stopped going to church.”
Do you catch anything a bit odd here?
The words “think” and “know” come up a lot. And yet he lost his faith. Theology is faith seeking understanding or better yet, faith thinking. But thinking does not equal faith.
Remember Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”
Faith does not mean we turn our brains off or discard logic or evidence completely. Nevertheless, faith implies hope, the unseen, the uncertain. Ehrmann tried to figure out suffering, could not think it through logically, and claims to have lost his faith.
Here is my question, in what did he place his faith? In scripture making perfect sense? Definitely–see his book Misquoting Jesus. In life having a clear meaning we can parse out? Definitely again–see his latest book.
I don’t see a former follower of Jesus here who says that God failed him: he doesn’t say that God ignored his prayers, he doesn’t get into the personal relationship end with God. His focus is theology: places where God doesn’t line up, the facts did not line up with his faith–wherever he placed his faith. This is the failure of theology, the failure of an intellectual to put his faith in a neat box where all of the loose ends tie up. I don’t see faith at all. Ehrmann did not lose his faith in God because he doesn’t seem to have had all that much faith in God. He placed his faith in theology. Even if he had a personal conversion experience, at some point he placed his faith in something other than God.
Perhaps I’m being a little rough on him. And I admit, I have a lot of compassion for him. It breaks my heart to see him struggling to figure all of this out. Nevertheless, he’s opening himself up and sharing his bones of contention with God. In doing that, I think he’s inviting scrutiny, and that’s where I’m coming from. I think he’s placing the blame in the wrong place, though of course I have not stood squarely in his shoes. I’m merely basing my assessment on his interviews and books.
Christianity is about something terrifying and hard to believe. Jesus says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” That means we have to take that huge step of faith–and I mean this is the biggest leap we could ever take–and opening the door.
Will there be anyone or anything there?
We can’t know for sure.
But we can open the door in faith, leaving all theology and doctrines behind until later. Because our hope is first and foremost in God, not in theology or doctrines or theories or philosophy. We believe first in God, and then we seek to know God, even if we can’t expect everything to line up. Faith has to be enough.
God is knocking. We can open the door and have that supernatural encounter or we can turn up our theology and drown out the God who wants to know us.
- Date Wednesday, 20 Feb 08 at 4:50 pm
- Under reflections (aka theology)
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Dan Morrow Says: 03.05.08 at 11:08 am
Hi,
Bart Ehrman (one “n”) lost his faith in the God, ” . . . proclaimed by the Judeo-Christian tradition, the one who is actively and powerfully involved in this world.”
As a baptized Christian I find his arguments well-grounded and eloquently stated.
One may disagree with his conclusions about the nature of the God described in Christian scripture and tradition . . . but I find it most difficult to fault the scholarship upon which those conclusions are based, or the integrity of the man who reached them.
It seems to me that your speculation that one can leave “. . . all theology and doctrines behind until later. Because our hope is first and foremost in God . . . ,” presupposes both the existence of the deity in question and some insight into its nature, no?
ed Says: 03.05.08 at 11:47 am
Dan,
I should first of all mention that NT Wright and Bart Ehrman have engaged in a very interesting discuss about this very topic that will do far more to clarify things that what I can say. You can find it at: http://blog.beliefnet.com/blogalogue/ (via: http://www.emergentvillage.com/weblog/the-problem-of-pain-beliefnet-blogalogue).
I should also note that in the midst of reading the blog dialogue, Ehrman stresses that he really did have a relationship with Jesus, something that I doubt in the above post. I am still uncomfortable with the terms he uses to describe that relationship, as it sounds a bit too intellectual, but hey, I’ll take his word for it!
Regarding Ehrman’s scholarship, he does some very excellent work, however, I believe that NT Wright catches his in one of his key mistakes. He assumes that the writers of scripture are trying to answer the same exact questions he is posing. In other words he reads the prophets as trying to answer his theodicy question regarding evil. Wright states,
“I don’t think much of the Bible is actually addressing the question, ‘Why is there suffering?’, but rather the question, ‘What is God doing about it?’. When cause-and-effect sequences do occur, as in Amos etc., I read them within the prophetic call to Israel and the warnings, proper to humans in general and covenant people in particular, about the consequences of not going with the grain of the creator’s purposes.”
There are more qualified people than myself who fault Ehrman in some key places, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t brilliant and sincere in his search and scholarship. I think he uses his scholarly tools well, I just believe he’s emphasizing the wrong things or perhaps pointed in the wrong direction in that process. Perhaps he’s even searching for the wrong things. In other words he’s coming from a conservative tradition that requires a neat and tidy Bible, when in reality we need a reliable Bible, not necessarily a perfectly neat and tidy Bible. Instead we have a God who is involved in our lives, a reliable Bible, a tradition passed down to us, and a global faith.
Part of Ehrman’s beef with God is the reliability of scripture along with the theodicy issue. If theology is faith seeking understanding, which I believe it to be, then the first step is a relationship with God. Sorting out the details will come in part, but Christianity is about an encounter with God. I’m not presupposing anything of God. I’m talking about being overwhelmed with the presence of God.
That has happened to me and continues to happen. I can’t prove it to you. I can try to flesh God out through scripture, but if I only rely on scripture and not this ongoing relationship with God, I am left with a pretty flimsy faith.
So I have no doubt that Ehrman is sincere or that he is not a brilliant scholar. I’m sure he could run circles around me in a debate! However, I still think he’s wrong because he’s trying to stuff God into an Enlightenment-sized theodicy box that doesn’t line up with the questions and answers offered in scripture. He is more than welcome to find Christianity inadequate as an answer for his questions, however I can also say as a Christian that I believe he’s looking for the wrong thing from scripture and that the picture painted by scripture of our world and the way things are is quite different from what Ehrman brings to the table.
OK, this is a huge topic and I’m sure I could write all day! I’ll defer my arguments to NT Wright in that Belief.net postings. I think he’ll do a much better job at this!
Thanks for dropping by!