Truth cannot contradict Truth
One thing I fully appreciate is when a person is willing to enter into the craziness that is my life and help me work through my thoughts, confusions, and struggles. Last night I called a friend from college and basically yelped "Help!!" And the result was one of the coolest conversations I've had in a long time.
We didn't "solve" anything. In fact, I think we both walked away from the conversation a bit more confused than we were to begin with. But I'm okay with that, temporarily at least. Why? Because the process of the conversation itself was so cool.
The basic topic of conversation was: What do I agree with and disagree with in the Catholic Church? My friend, who is the "type" of Catholic that I am (hm, a "liberal" but devout Catholic), has views that often match mine. As a consequence, he became pretty engaged in the discussion and we set out to work together to challenge ourselves on this topic.
It's difficult to explain the type of interaction that we had, but it felt challenging and directed yet exploratory. We asked questions. We compared our answers with the stated answers of the Church. We articulated hypothetical sitations to ponder. We made up multiple definitions of words and then tried to figure out which definition was most plausible, most frequently used, or most correct. We ranted about views that felt offensive, yet contemplated their ultimate merit. When we disagreed, we tried to figure out why we each held to our particular view. We made up more hypothetical situations. We considered the effects that experience, emotion, and logic were having on our answers. And we asked more questions.
My friend raised a particularly interesting question in the midst of all of this discussion: Does God judge someone based on their ability to understand?
A slightly different way of phrasing the above question: Is there a "middle ground" somewhere between accepting and rejecting an idea? If you don't reject an idea, have you necessarily accepted it? If you don't accept an idea, have you necessarily rejected it? What effect, for example, does ignorance have on your basic ability to accept or reject an idea?
As a nerdy tangent, I thought about these sorts of issues (on a much nerdier basis) in topology class in college. Given a topological space, there exist open sets and closed sets, but they aren't necessarily exhaustive categories. For example, depending on the topology you're working with, you can have sets that are neither open nor closed. The way this comes about is that neither open nor closed are defined as the opposite as each other, but are each defined based on specific criteria. You have to meet a certain set of criteria to be open, and you have to meet a different set of criteria to be closed. Is the acceptance or rejection of an idea similar in that each requires a certain meeting of criteria? Or are acceptance and rejection of an idea similar to how we define "open" and "closed" in relation to doors -- where a door can only either be open or closed?
posted by Katie @ 8:56 AM
9 Comments:
My quick take would be that NOT(accept) defaults to reject at the time of death.
Consider: if you believe that you must accept Christ as Savior in order to inherit eternal life, can you simply go around your entire life and say "I'm not sure" and then die and have Christ say "well, that's close enough"? I think not. Either you believe or you don't by the time you're dead. Until that point, I could see NOT(accept) being NOT(accept -- yet anyways) ... we all struggle to work things out sometimes.
A lack of understanding is not an excuse. The oft-quoted "ignorance of the law is no excuse" comes to mind as well. Christ is the only way to salvation means that someone who has never heard of Christ (the oft-used example of African tribes) is as guilty as rejecting Him and His salvation as the well-educated business man who has heard the gospel and rejects it. Seems harsh, perhaps, but what's the alternative? That it's okay not to believe if you didn't know any better? Those people are still sinners, and unless they accept the salvation Christ offers them, they must be called to account for their sin.
Hear, hear for “liberal”, devout Catholics.
I have to say that the middle ground idea is one of the reasons that I love the Roman Catholic idea of Purgatory; it offers that middle ground for people who may not have accepted things (at least religiously) but not rejected them outright either. For some things, I haven't been able to find a Biblical or Catechismic (is that a word?) reference for (or against), like the salvation of those who've not heard of Christ or of good people who may not have believed in Christ, I still like to believe that it's true that Purgatory also gives them a middle ground for that. (Think the Aslan/Tash reference in the end of C.S. Lewis' "The Last Battle") There's not really an easy answer though, even with the idea of Purgatory.
Now that's the purely religious side of me talking, to get into the logical argument from a secular side I'd have to agree with Carl that to not accept something is to, by default, reject it.
Carl, have you heard of Scientology? Our capacities CAN be realized!! Katie, beauty is in the eye of the beer holder. I know the (seemingly) opposing concepts of rejection and acceptance (regarding ideas, not foods like chicken or tater tots) can be difficult to contextualize, especially in our increasingly technology-based culture. But truly, they are one and the same.
If you're going to say that someone who hasn't even heard of Jesus can't be saved, are you going to take some of the responsibility for their ignorance? If you want to use the "ignorance of the law" example (which I think isn't comparable), then I'm going to have an issue with the passenger in my car who knows that u-turns are illegal and doesn't tell me before I do one.
If you *do* believe that you have to accept Jesus to be saved, then okay, by golly, you know what you have to do.
I do not know what to think about people who do not know anything about Jesus. I like to think that they aren't going to be damned because they have not had the opportunities that I have had. So I guess I'm saying that not accepting something because you do not know of its existence is not the same as rejecting it.
Well....here's a couple more questions:
Does gravity effect us based on our acceptance of the idea?
Why are we ignorant of God in the first place? (Do we have trouble finding God because we are ignorant, or does our ignorance stem from our rejection of God?)
I'm curious how this passage fits into people's thoughts on this topic.
One interpretation I've heard from people is that rejection-by-default is apparently less bad than other forms of rejection, somehow.
(It's also scary to me, as a person with some level of knowing ... am I doing what He wants me to do? do I have a good, specific, complete idea of what that is? is it within the realm of things I can actually do?)
This sounds like it was a really, really interesting set of conversations. Sometime I'll have to try to get in on it IRL. :)
The theory of gravity and the theory of salvation are qualitatively different.
You can accept or reject the theory of gravity. However, the theory of gravity does not include a clause or parameter relating to the choice that you make. Your choice, therefore, has no effect on how gravity itself acts on you.
(Given that you've heard and understood the theory of salvation?), you can accept or reject the theory of salvation. Because the theory of salvation is by definition dependent upon your choice, your choice has an effect on how salvation itself acts on you.
The difference between the two theories, and why I think that it's inappropriate to draw an analogy to one using the other, is that the theory of salvation is self-referential (refers to itself as a condition for salvation) whereas the theory of gravity is not.
Other thoughts on not accepting, and whether that equals rejecting:
Some people haven't accepted for reasons (certain types of ignorance) that we can maybe, maybe do something about.
But...what do you do for the people who haven't accepted for reasons that we have no control over? Babies who were born with a fatal condition? People who have a severe mental disability?
When does not accepting = rejecting?
It seems to me that there must be a difference between 'mentally capable of understanding' and 'having it all figured out.'
For those who are intellectually capable of understanding who Christ is and what salvation means, scripture is pretty clear that there is no middle ground. Check out John 5:24. Those who believe cross from death to life--what can there be between those? Aside from the movies, there is no such thing as being "mostly dead." Notice also that this verse doesn't say "whoever hears my word and understands" everything... it says "whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life..." It isn't about having it all figured out--it's about believing by faith. Once we believe we can have the fun of trying to figure out the rest of the many nuances for the rest of our lives. :) Salvation is a black and white issue. Accept or reject, heaven or hell. Everything else (baptism? communion? speaking in tongues?), well, it must have a difinitve answer somehow, but God himself might be the only one who knows it for now. :)
As for those who are not mentally capable of believing, I don't know. I can't think of any passage in scripture that addresses this issue. Many Christians believe in the idea of an 'age of accountability' when children become capable of believing in Christ. This would probably apply to those who are mentally handicapped as well. By this theory, those who haven't reached that magic age or level of reasoning are not held accountable. But still, the Bible doesn't shed any light on this as far as I know.
The other sticking point, of course, is for those who have not heard His word. The explanation I've commonly heard comes from Romans 1:20 which basically says that creation itself is evidence to those who have not heard the gospel. Even so, our job is, as Christ commanded us, to make disciples, and as Anne said, take some responsibility for their ignorance. If they don't know and we do, it's our job to tell them.
Actually, I think the theory of gravity is very similar to the theory of salvation.
Given that you are standing on top of a tall skyscraper, what will happen if you choose to jump? Your choice does not impact the theory gravity, only the manner in which the theory of gravity applies to you. If you choose not to jump, you will stay put (barring any high winds or shoves). If you choose to jump, gravity will accelerate you downward at 9.8m/s^2, usually resulting in a high speed collision with the ground.
Gravity applies regardless of what choice you make: It only applies in different ways. I would argue that choice in salvation works the same way...choice just has an impact on the manner in which the laws impact you.
(As a side note, there are passages strongly suggesting -- stating?? -- that God makes himself known to those who want to know him...thus the issue with us not knowing him is more an us issue than a 'how far away God is' issue.)
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