The Double Refuge 🍷 Bubbles Winking at the Brim
Open Theism
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In The Double Refuge I explore the relation between doubt and belief. I suggest that each can help in understanding the other, and that each can be a refuge for the other. Belief can be a refuge from fear, alienation, angst, and meaninglessness, and doubt can be a refuge from pride, dogma, religious conflict, and the feeling of being boxed in.
Doubt and belief are often seen as distinct, even as irreconcilable opposites. I however think of then as complementary, especially in the sense that they can strengthen and temper one another. Belief can soften the hard edges of doubt, and doubt can soften the hard edges of belief. This complementary relation relies on one thing: openness. For my double refuge system to work, doubt must remain open to doubting its own doubt (which creates room for belief), and belief must remain open to different beliefs and ways of thinking (which creates room for doubt), even to the point of accepting those who have no belief at all.
Most people get the basic gist of agnostic doubt, although it’s far more complex and solid than many think. (In The Double Refuge, and particularly in the chapter 🍏 Agnosticism, I illustrating why this is so.) Yet what most people have a hard time grasping off the bat is how one religious belief can remain open to doubt and to other religious beliefs. Most people think of a religion as a belief system that only works if you believe in that system and keep to that system. For this reason I wan tto star tby making very clear what I mean by open theism.
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People often believe that a religious system will be weakened if one doesn't have complete belief in that system, and if one doesn't believe that that system is the way the universe works. Yet I don't believe this makes a lot of sense, either rationally or spiritually, at least if one's definition of God is Infinite Power & Benevolence.
If God is good everywhere it's hard to imagine him picking one religion and throwing away all the others. From a Christian point of view, we just have to think about the Buddhist concept of a bodhisattva. This is a good soul who could dwell in Heaven but out of compassion comes back to Earth to help other people. This seems like the definition of a good Christian. Why would God reject such a person, or the system which contains such a belief in compassion and selflessness? If God is benevolent, and if this benevolence has no limits, why do we put such a limit on His goodness?
God's house is large enough to contain many rooms, or at least a great man once said that. I prefer the more innaccurate King James version of `john 14.2: "In my Father’s house are many mansions.” The notion of mansions in a house is an expansive one, and I think it gets at the size of the spiritual empathy that God must have for every form of belief, every good intention, every being that attempts to evolve, expand our understanding, make a fair world, etc. One can imagine that within each of these mansions is a religion, fully developed, with many rooms, turrets, copulas, domes and minarets. Perhaps the room is the size of Europe with its Christianity, of India with its Hinduism, or China with its fusion of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.
My point here is that God's space is infinite, and his ways are diverse beyond what we can imagine, hence it’s worth stepping out of our more rational idea of the rooms in God’s house to think of the rooms as mansions with worlds inside them. One can then imagine that some of the rooms are 500 years old and others are 5000. We can also imagine that this house is only one on the block, and that the belief systems of others goes back 5 million years. One can imagine God’s many other worlds with their religions and their attempts to pierce infinity.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to believe in such an enormous God and then to say that he can't operate different systems of belief. It contradicts the notion of an infinite and omnipotent God.
In open theism, many religions coexist because God's infinity can operate many systems at once. Even with our limited understanding, we know of endless models of larger systems that have within them smaller systems. Why would we imagine that a God who can create DNA can't operate different systems?
In open theism people can take aspects of one religion and combine them with aspects of another religion. This is only impossible to do if one imagines that the systems contradict each other. But if God finds a way of having different systems work simultaneously and on the same planet, often in the same taon and family, then why can't we use parts of different system? We never grasp the total truth of anything, why should we start with doing that now?
Doubt is a key part of open theism. For instance, if we’re Catholic and read the ridiculous verdict that Jesus Christ cannot transubstantiate into a gluten-free Eucharist wafer (which the Vatican went to the trouble of spelling out!), one needs to use doubt to step away from that particular ridiculous and uncharitable rule of Catholic theology. Likewise we believe that women are equal to men, we need to be able to argue with the notion of a male papacy and a male priesthood. We can still believe in redemption without these other ideas that limit religion. We can do the same thing in a million different ways with all the religions, and with all the philosophies, including atheism.
In open theism we can mix and match religious ideas to our hearts content. God is so good and so powerful that he has allowed many different systems, and therefore we should keep our minds open. We shouldn’t judge any one system positively just because we believe in it, and we shouldn’t judge another system negatively just because we don’t. Judge not, lest ye be judged.
The open refuge merely expands the range of God’s benevolent tolerance. In the open refuge, we can mix and match all ideas, sacred or profane, without the fear of angering a jealous God.
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Next: 🍷 Bridges