Christianity and Supernaturalism
by John Baxter
.
A. Prologue
1. The Case Against Supernaturalism
2. The “appearance” of Jesus to Paul
3. The Empty Tomb. Appearance and Wonder Stories in the Gospels
4. Ways of Looking at the Stories and Teaching
5. Supernaturalism and Miracle
6. Naturalism
7. The Naturalism of Anti-religious Atheists and Conspiracy Theorists
8. Naturalism and Natural Explanations
9. Symbolism in Religious Practice
10. Who the Stories Were For and How They Were Used
11. Supernaturalism and Symbolism in Religious Practice Contrasted.
12. Them Bones
13. Two Approaches to Historical Evidence
14. How Supernaturalist Thinking Grows Today.
15. Evangelical Conversion: Resurrected and Born Again
16. The Effectiveness of Christian Devotional Training and Practice.
17. Supernaturalism amongst Evangelicals and Catholics.
18. The Credibility of Supernaturalism
19. Parapsychology, Telepathy, Psychokinesis and Findhorn.
20. The Turin Shroud.
21. Supernaturalism and the Need for Evidence
22. The Christian Scriptures as Evidence
23. How Supernaturalism Misses the Point
24. What if Supernaturalism Were True?’
25. Supernaturalism in the Arts and Popular Culture.
26. The Confusing Question of Faith.
27. The Religious Irrelevance of Supernaturalism.
28. Christian Theology and Religious Studies.
Prologue.
I consider it important to start by indicating where I come from and where I stand. I read Theology at Rhodes and Oxford, worked on the philosophical evaluation of belief systems at Bristol and spent twenty-five years teaching Religious Studies in secondary schools. I have also been deeply involved in the practice and study of the Theravadin Buddhist tradition, which uniquely among the world religions does not involve belief in or worship of God.
In her fascinating and important tour of contemporary cosmologists, their theories and her reactions to them as an Anglican theologian and TV producer, Angela Tilby in her book Science and the Soul never refered to miracles and only refers to the division between the natural and supernatural to decry it. (p 245-249) I think this is right for I also think belief in God, though increasingly difficult to justify philosophically, remains an option worthy of intellectual respect. Fundamentally it seems to me that to believe in God is to read the universe and all that is in it as somehow the expression of an ultimate self-aware mind, a mind which is best understood as being glimpsed by reflecting on the nature of that most mysterious and extraordinary thing we know and encounter, the self-aware human mind.
I though am comfortable with the Buddhist tradition because I would describe myself as a transcendant atheist. By this I mean by atheist that though I see we are the products of the awesome evolution of dust into self-awareness, I also see no evidence that the process is driven by some ultimate self-aware mind, but rather that it is the result of impersonal natural forces. This means I see no-one (beyond human agents) to blame, praise or worship for things turning out as they have, and thus no “problem of suffering” to be explained in the Christian/Jewish sense. (How could God be such an unjust beast?) Why transcendant? Because I find the wonder, beauty, mystery, complexity, sheer scale and unexpectedness of the universe and of people is never “mundane” but a constant source of amazment, joy, sorrow and awe, and I have found Buddhist meditation as an aid to contemplating this, a revelation.
The point I wish to emphasise in this paper is that I think between an atheist like me and a theist like Angela Tilby there is no arguement about what counts as evidence as to how the world works, what is possible, what is likely and what it is reasonable to believe is the case. This is in stark contrast to those Christians and others who accept the existence of miracles and the supernatural as “real events”. They it seems argue that things happen and people are influenced in ways which “non-believers” are blind to, or refuse to recognise, that we are “oversceptical” or “guilty of reductionism,” a readiness to oversimplify. It is this point of view which this paper challenges, not the question, “Is it is rational to believe in God.”
Why do I bother? Because I respect and admire many Christians and because I think, unlike Marx, that the record shows religions can be a force for the promotion of humane values, compassionate behaviour, a sense of community, and consistent and sensitive moral living.
I also recognise (and could expounded at great length to justify) that we work better as human beings if we link ourselves to an identifiable community through some sharing of a common story relating to the meaning we give to our lives, and participate in some ceremonies, symbols and moral rules which exemplify and communicate shared values. This is something all the faith communities provide so I see that all the great religious traditions such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sihkism can be skillfully used to promote lives of quality and meaning. Sadly, as Marx also saw, all the religions can easily be misused when irrational, intolerant and authoritarian thinking, teaching and practice comes to dominate – as we see in the growth of fundamentalism and supernaturalism.
1. The Case Against Supernaturalism.
a. For centuries the argument has raged between Christians and those who reject the religion over supernaturalism and miracles. On the one side the “believers” argue that it is reasonable, necessary or both to accept supernatural miracles and the “unbelievers” that it is not. What is more they have taken it for granted that the same arguments between belief and unbelief must be central when it comes to judging the claims of other religions, in particular Judaism and Islam, but also to judging Hinduism, Buddhism and the primal traditional religions. I wish to argue that this is a very strange state of affairs and is based on the exclusive way in which historically Christian theology has been studied, that is on its own, and simply in relation to the western and classical philosophical tradition – without taking into account the wider phenomena of religious systems.
b. The medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas for example said, (Summa Contra Gentiles, 111) “those things are properly called miracles which are done by divine agency beyond the order commonly observed in nature.” Similarly the philosopher David Hume who took issue with Aquinas in his “Of Miracles” written in 1748 says, “A miracle may accurately be defined a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent.” He also says “a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature.”
c. Aquinas argued that acceptance of miracle and the supernatural was an essential component of Christian faith and that acceptance of this was reasonable. Hume on the other hand argued that “the proof against miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.” (Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding p 114) Sadly today the “debate” continues to be cast in this way by those who see themselves, be they Roman Catholic, Anglican or Evangelical as “traditional orthodox Christians” and those who see themselves as championing science and reason – like Professor Richard Dawkins.
d. I hope however to show that this is a fairly sterile debate because those on both sides end up treating religious texts which describe “miracles” as if they claim to be accurate descriptions of real historical events, events which if only the technology had been around at the time could have been captured on video cassette. I will argue that such an approach inevitably leads “believers” into asserting what sound to those “outside” as irrational nonsense. It also leads to believers and unbelievers alike misunderstanding the basic purpose and meaning of such texts.
e. To illustrate what I mean let us go straight to look at what all Christians would agree is the most important of all the “miracles”, the “Resurrection of Jesus.”
The four gospels of the Christian Scriptures, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all contain vivid, easily imagined stories telling of the “resurrection,” of Jesus. How after he had been crucified, (dead and buried) he “rose again” from the dead and “appeared” to various groups of his disciples who inspired by this experience set about spreading this “good news” so founding what has proved to be an amazingly dynamic world religion.
2. The “appearance” of Jesus to Paul.
a. Interestingly though, biblical scholars from a variety of backgrounds are all agreed that the oldest Christian records are not the four gospels, but the letters of the Apostle (special messenger) Paul who they conclude died in the sixties of the first century CE. Paul, originally the Jewish rabbi Saul of Tarsus., it seems never knew or met Jesus during his life-time, yet he says frequently in his writings that “Christ is risen from the dead” and that he was a “witness” to the resurrection in that Jesus had “appeared” to him. Paul regarded this “appearance” as a powerful experience which changed him from persecutor of those who followed Jesus to apostle of Jesus who he came to see as the Christ, (the anointed one) the Son of God, the universal Saviour of mankind. The exact nature of the experience which brought about this radical change in Paul and his new understanding of who he saw Jesus to be is however obscure. Paul does not describe it. (See 1 Corinthians 15.5-8, Galatians 1.16) ( There is a description written some years later in Luke’s book of the Acts of the Apostles (ch.9) which claims that Paul had set out to attack the teaching of the followers of Jesus in Damascus when on the road there he was blinded by a light invisible to his colleagues, but that he and they heard a voice say “Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute me?” ). He was then taken in by followers of “the Way, his sight returned and he was baptised into the Christian community.
b. Interestingly nowhere does Paul link his experience of an appearance of Jesus to the accounts in the gospel stories that after burial Jesus’ tomb was found to be empty. What he emphasises is that Jesus had “appeared” to a string of his disciples, and that the last of these “appearances” was to himself. The consequence of this is that Paul becomes completely convinced that Jesus is “alive” in a special spiritual sense and in his writings Paul constantly emphasises that his experience of an “appearance” of Jesus has lead him to see the Christian community, the ecclesia, as being “the Body of Christ”.
c. Paul repeatedly emphasises that the “appearance” he received is no different in kind or importance to that of other disciples and apostles, and is the grounds for him claiming to be an apostle – one chosen by Jesus himself. This raises a simple if crude question. If Paul had been equipped with a camcorder could he have filmed the “appearance” to him of Jesus to prove his credentials – or was it something we might describe as being only visible “to his mind’s eye” – and was it any the less “real” for being that?
3. The Empty Tomb. Appearance and Wonder Stories in the Gospels.
a. Paul it seems was dead before any of the gospels or the Book of Acts in their present form were written. The scholarly consensus is that this was between 75 and 100 CE. In contrast to Paul the four Christian Gospels all tell stories of the discovery by (different) disciples of an empty tomb and all except Mark describe subsequent meetings with a resurrected Jesus. Mark tells of Jesus’ tomb being found empty on the morning of the third day after his crucifixion, and Matthew, Luke and John add to this accounts of “angels” or young men appearing at the tomb and before women disciples. An earthquake is described, and the rising from the dead of other Jews in Jerusalem, of a strange darkness falling during the crucifixion, of the veil before the Holy of Holies being torn open and of Jesus appearing to his disciples after his death on the cross on a variety of occasions. In one he speaks to a woman named Mary, two are connected with a meal which seems to echo in some way his last ceremonial supper with his disciples and in one he presides over a catch of fish, (ixthus) which became and remains a Christian acrostic for Jesus Christ Son of God and Saviour. In addition the body’ of Jesus is described as being visible to a group, to be able to be touched and able to disappear. Finally Jesus is described by Luke as “ascending” before the coming of “the Holy Spirit” upon the Christian community, the Church. Certainly the gospel accounts are vivid and dramatic and have over the centuries inspired great works of art in a variety of media. Does this though make them accurate and historical?
b. The actual. authorship and dating of these Gospels cause a bit more controversy among serious Biblical scholars than the letters of Paul, yet. there is a broad consensus. Mark is generally considered to be the oldest gospel and to have been used as the basis for the work of Matthew and Luke, while John also shows a knowledge of Mark. He however chooses to write in a very different style, though equally vivid, and describes events in a different sequence from Mark. All serious scholars agree it is impossible to collate all four gospels into one neat account. Each contains elements which are unique and the details just do not add up in that way. The gospels however do show that stories of the resurrection and appearance of Jesus after his death were very important for those Christian communities for whom they were written..
c. Most scholars also agree that the evidence against any of the gospels being the work of eye-witnesses is strong. What we have are edited and worked over documents based on Mark and earlier oral traditions, each written for use in public worship by a particular Christian community and each reflecting significantly different perspectives. This leaves Paul’s account of his own conversion in his first letter to the Corinthians as the only “eye-witness account” of a resurrection “appearance”. that we have. It has nothing to do with an empty tomb and I would argue does not describe anything other than an internal change, a “change of heart” within Paul.
4. Ways of Looking at the Stories and Teaching.
a. It might be thought that this is essentially a question of linguistic and documentary study, of attempting to understand which documents are chronologically closest to the events they describe, and what the words appear to mean in their own context. The problem is however, that this cannot be done by scholars or anyone else without their own presuppositions, their mind set, influencing the outcome. Examining commonly held presuppositions is therefore the vital first step in any attempt to make sense of writing about the resurrection stories and it is this we now focus on.
b. As I see it in contemporary discussion by people trying to make sense of the Christian Story ( or stories) be they Christian, secular humanist, adherent of another religion, scholar or agnostic “general reader”, arguments range between three main ways of looking at things. These I label as those based on an acceptance in some sense of Supernaturalism, those based on Naturalism and those which emphasise the use of story, symbolism, liturgical drama and ceremony in religious practice – what we will call for the sake of brevity a Symbolist approach.. To complicate things these emphases are often mixed up with each other in more or less credible packages, but first I should say what I mean by these terms.
5. Supernaturalism and Miracle
a. In its Christian form as we have seen from Aquinas and his later opponent Hume Supernaturalism is the belief that we live in a world under the control of a supernatural divine power, often described as a “personal God”, who is creator and orderer of the universe. This god is considered to be capable, able and willing, particularly in order to make an important point, to over-ride the normal workings of the natural order to perform “miracles”. As a result supernaturalists see the Christian teaching about the resurrection as being centred on a unique and inexplicable historical event (scientifically inexplicable that is) They see it as an assertion that something happened to the dead body of Jesus to bring it alive again and that this is a “supernatural miracle” — in fact the crucial, pivotal miracle which “demonstrates” that Jesus was (and is) the “Son of God”. What is more both Catholic and Evangelical Christians often believe that God has continued to work scientifically inexplicable “miracles” throughout history and right up to the present day (though they seldom agree over the same miracles)
6. Naturalism
a. This is the view that whether or not there is some transcendent or imminent divine force or God, there are no good reasons based on evidence to justify assertions that there are any inexplicable as opposed to unexplained events, or that if there is a god he would abrogate the consistency of the systems in operation. The chains of logic, cause and effect, are seen as being inexorable. Naturalists can thus be both atheists and theists.
b. Naturalism is the basic way of thinking upon which all forms of science are built. Scientific theories are based upon measurement and observation and lead to predictions as to what will or will not happen as a consequence. Scientific thinking develops paradigms or mental models of the world which are used to predict and explain. For centuries astronomy was based on the paradigm that the earth was the center of the universe and the sun and the planets circled around it. It seemed common-sense, observable and reasonable. Famously Galileo put forward a different paradigm, arguing that predictions about the movements of the planetary bodies could be more easily made on the assumption that the earth and the planets circled the sun. It was not that the view of Galileo was scientific and the view of Copernicus before him was not. Both were scientific in that both paradigms took for granted that the way the universe worked was consistent and predictable. Galileo came to be seen as “right” and superceded Copernicus who became seen as “wrong” and redundant because Galileo’s theory fitted in with the observations of astronomers more elegantly and economically, and his sums were simpler. Hence the “march of science”. All scientific theories are approximations open to revision on the basis of new and more accurate measurements, observations and the creation of simpler and more elegant models for prediction and explanation. Newton’s theory of gravity – while brilliant – was superceded by Einstein’s theory of relativity, and that has been or may be overtaken by something called “string theory”. What remains unchallenged is the assumption that the universe and all that is in it operates in a consistent, logical way. In no circumstances does logic or mathematics cease to function, and in no circumstances does the world behave in an inherently illogical and unintelligible way.
When this way of thinking is applied to the resurrection stories basically several types of explanation are often adopted.
7. The Naturalism of Anti-religious Atheists and Conspiracy Theorists.
a. These are those like professor Richard Dawkins who argue that the resurrection stories are a pack of ignorant superstitions or deliberate lies. This view sees the aim of the Christian Scriptures as being to deliberately mislead people into accepting a supernaturalist world view on the basis of fraudulent, concocted evidence. (both Jews and Muslims have argued against Christianity in this way)
b. In defence of this attitude we should remember that from the beginning Christianity was regarded by cultivated and religiously sceptical Romans and Greeks as a “new superstition” and it is easy to forget in serious debate that all religions, ancient and modern, Christianity included, attract and cater for, among others, the desperate, the neurotic, the alienated, the marginalised, the suggestible and the gullible. It attracts many who not surprisingly are grasping for help, certainty and comfort in what they experience ( as most of us do at some times) as a chaotic and hostile world and whose attitudes are highly superstitious. Probably there are more who are self-deluding and suggestible than there are scheming frauds – though it is often very difficult to separate them. What such people do though in all religions is to claim they or others have received dreams, visions, healings, auguries of the future etc., etc. to convince themselves that they have “irrefutable” evidence of supernatural. help and guidance and can claim a certainty for their choices which is always illusory..
c. Within Christianity the thousands of followers of contemporary American tele-evangelists, and healers such as “Dr” Morris Cerillo are sad examples of this, but they are nothing new. Parallels are to be found in all traditions of Christianity, and in all religions. Thus it is not surprising that there are those who see the Christian resurrection stories as being works of religious credulity and wish fulfilment. For myself I would argue that although it would be strange and unique in the history of religions if this tendency were not to have had some influence on the Christian scriptures, particularly in the work of Luke (who in comparison to Mark often likes to supernaturalise incidents), it would be a great mistake to simply dismiss the resurrection stories in this way.
8. Naturalism and Natural Explanations
a. Naturalism can be used in a rather different way. That is to assert that behind resurrection and miracle stories, there must lie some “perfectly natural” explanation. What I am referring to are all those elaborate theories which claim that after the crucifixion Jesus was not dead, but in a coma and the body spirited away by disciples – so that behind the resurrection stories lies some usually quite complicated naturalistic explanation involving his subsequent death or even emigration to India.
b. Naturalism as an approach has some plausibility when applied to many of the healing miracles of Jesus. “Leprosy” covered a variety of skin conditions, some stress related, much illness and epilepsy were regarded as the result of demon possession until very recently etc. The problem with such theories being applied to the resurrection stories though is the lack of evidence, documentary or otherwise to support them and the excessive speculative theorising they entail. (This might have happened, so it is not impossible that then this could have happened, and then perhaps that – etc., etc.)
c. For this reason I do not consider such theories as being worth pursuing further here, except to note that their variety, sometimes works of intelligence and ingenuity, underlines that clear historical conclusions about what happened to the body of Jesus are impossible to draw. We simply do not know what happened to the body of Jesus or to the bodies of most of the other inhabitants of Palestine at the time and (short of significant archaeological finds) we never will.
9. Symbolism in Religious Practice
a. Finally, because I think it makes the most sense, we will explore the resurrection stories as texts to be used for liturgical drama, religious and devotional practice. In asserting this I am very aware that there is little or nothing I say which has not be been said before, either by Christian theologians, or by scholars in the area of Religious Studies, still this particular mix of arguments is mine.
b. What may make my contribution a little different has been a personal involvement with Theravadin Buddhist practice and the teaching of the Buddhist monk the Venerable Ajahn Sumedho. Through his teaching I came to understand how the Buddhist tradition has always described itself as a system of spiritual training to be practised rather than a system of belief to be accepted on faith. This is a very different definition from the definition of religion as a system of beliefs that is taken for granted by Christians and one they should remember is much older. I have seen the Ajahn demonstrate how Buddhist teachings, stories, scriptures and ceremonies should be used as objects for reflection, examination, inspiration and spiritual practice, that is as ways of affecting the mind, emotions and habits of acting, and not as doctrines or stories to be believed in as necessarily either literally or historically true.
c. This has lead me to explore a similar approach to the use of the stories and teachings of the Christian tradition, and to ask how far such an approach may well have been what was originally intended by the Gospel writers and practised by many early Christians for centuries.
d. My conclusion is to assert that supernaturalist or simple naturalistic ways of understanding the resurrection stories have simply and radically misunderstood their meaning and purpose. My reading of them is that they were never meant to be regarded in the modern sense as accurate historical documents, and as such as evidence proving the occurrence of supernatural events. Rather they were written from the start to be used as inspiring religious scriptures for the new Christian community, documents intended to be used in the sacred drama of liturgy and worship, as tools for inspiring awe, wonder and dedication in following the Christian Way.
e. It seems to me that if you look at how religious stories and scriptures have and are used in many ancient traditions, Hindu, Buddhist, Greek, Mesopotamian and Jewish, and compare this with the devotional use of Christian scripture, both ancient and contemporary, a common theme emerges. This is that all of them were not primarily written to be believed in, but to be used in public and private worship and reflection to inspire deeper religious practice.
10. Who the Stories Were For and How They Were Used
a. Although at this distance in time it is not possible to know how all the stories and their symbolism were understood ( for example why were there 153 fish mentioned in John) still a great deal is clear. First who were these texts for? The Gospels are obviously books for insiders, for members of the Church and initially for Jews and Gentile “godfearers”. They presuppose familiarity and acceptance of the Jewish Scriptures as normative and they constantly allude to them as being “prophetic”. This is done either by the use of direct quotation or just as commonly by the use of typology, ( the practice of mirroring or developing words, phrases, events or images from them — for example the story of Joseph taking the infant Jesus into Egypt to escape the massacre of the babies of Bethlehem is seen as echoing elements of the story of Moses.) Commitment to the Way of the Torah on the part of the listener is assumed to be a]ready there, at least to some extent, and to be in need of strengthening. The Gospel stories are not designed to be read to the totally pagan or sceptical members of the ancient world.
b. As to their use, this started by building on Jewish practice. As with the teaching of the Rabbis, Jesus’ teaching and the stories about him were carefully memorised and repeated in worship. This process continued once they were written down and they were used, as the Torah writings are, as a guide to the practice of everyday life. There then developed the more particularly Christian use of scriptures in the liturgy and ceremonies of the Christian sacraments. In these the words, stories, concepts and images of the old Jewish scriptures and the new Christian scriptures were expressed in sacred story, dramatic ceremony and symbol as in Baptism, the weekly celebration of the Eucharist and the annual Easter celebrations. In these a common theme is liturgically re-enacted, a death to sin, evil and selfishness and a rebirth to new life, a resurrection, to a life lived “in the Spirit” of Jesus and as a “member of his body,” the Church or Christian community.
c. Of course the communal and ceremonial side of scripture use was also part of a more individual meditative, reflective and ascetic tradition of spiritual training or practice which involved periods of solitude, fasting and silence in which the scriptural stories could be visualised, meditated upon, thought and prayed about as a means of enabling Christian disciples not only to live a Christian moral life, but also to develop a Christian way of thinking, feeling and imagining, a Christian spirituality.
d. The resurrection stories then were (and are) used as part of Christian practice in order to inspire people to see that the pattern of Jesus’ Way could be reborn in them as they sought to live in harmony with “the Holy Spirit, the “Spirit of Christ.”
e. If one compares the Koran, Hindu or Buddhist scriptures with the Gospels what is really striking is just how packed with drama, character and incident these Christian sacred writings are. Small wonder, and not unconnected, that they have been the inspiration of so much creativity in the arts.
f. Many Christians think it denigrating to hear it said that the gospels are inspiring in ways not unlike the way great literature, drama or poetry inspires. This is understandable because texts and stories ~. developed for spiritual practice – are not the same as literature, drama or poetry simply written to communicate, still the overlap is considerable and undeniable for the roots of all arts, drama and music go back to cultic practice. The vividness of the stories must also go back to Jesus’ own ability as a master storyteller and to the inspiration his example gave to those who told and then wrote the Christian narratives.
11. Supernaturalism and Symbolism in Religious Practice Contrasted.
a. Those who stress Supernaturalism in interpreting the resurrection stories see the most important point being that at its heart there lies a naturally inexplicable series of events whereby after his execution Jesus was met by his disciples in a tangible resuscitated form as a sign of God’s power and endorsement of him. In contrast those like me who would stress the place of dramatic symbols in religious practice of course accept the naturalist arguments in considering that there are no good reasons for believing that inherently inexplicable events have in the past or currently take place. (which of course is not the same as acknowledging that there are many events which are or will remain unexplained) Unlike naturalists and supernaturalists however, I would argue that what actually happened to Jesus’ body is spiritually and religiously irrelevant. The value of the resurrection stories lies not in the historical accuracy of what they say about what happened to the body of Jesus after death, but the power they have to move and inspire people to “take up their cross” and follow Jesus’ Way.
b. Of course biblical scholars of a supernaturalist persuasion usually recognise that the resurrection stories are rich in symbolism and are key sources for Christian devotion and meditation, but they are quick to argue that ultimately they are dependent for their power and authority upon the occurrence within history of a “supernatural series of events”. Everything else is seen by them as being of secondary importance. From a religious practice perspective however, the power and effectiveness of the resurrection stories in making the death of Jesus a symbol of hope and inspiration is quite independent of the existence of supernatural events.
12. Them Bones
a. The difference between the two points of view can be starkly put by pointing out that those who hold the supernaturalist view are of the opinion that if archaeologists were to discover the authenticated skeleton of Jesus, then they would have to conclude that their Christian faith was based on a delusion. (Of course those who hold this view are quick to add that they believe that such a find will never be made – however that does not affect the argument.)
b. On the other hand I would argue that the discovery of such a skeleton would make no difference at all to the truth (or falsity ) of Jesus’ teachings and the basic reasons for following him, (or of not following him.)
13. Two Approaches to Historical Evidence
a. Another way of emphasising the difference is to note that between a Christian who sees the primary purpose of Christian Scriptures as being to facilitate devotional and religious practice and a non – Christian historian investigating what can be known about Jesus and the manner of his death there would be no argument about what constitutes good historical evidence. (that of course is not to deny the very different conclusions which different historians might reasonably draw when working with the same sources) The difference between Christian and non-Christian historian would rather centre on whether or not they attached particular significance for themselves to the stories of Jesus and used them “devotionally” as part of their own religious practice.
b. Those who hold the supernaturalist view on the other hand usually also affirm that their view is based on the treatment of Christian and Jewish scriptures as being uniquely authoritative. For them this also means seeing them as being documents which should he treated as having an historical reliability of a quite different order from that of other ancient documents. Their claim is that these documents are divinely authenticated, and as such in some way or other preserved from any, or at the least from any serious error, and this is taken as including any historical error. This means of course that they apply their supernaturalism to the very documents they see as evidence for it.
c. This approach is shared by both those Catholics and Protestants who are inclined to describe themselves and their views as being “Orthodox”, “Traditional” or “Evangelical”. (Outside Christianity many Orthodox Jews and many “fundamentalist” Muslims adopt a similar style of thinking with regard to the historicity of their scriptures.) Scholars who adopt this approach are inclined to ignore or dismiss out of hand the conclusions of biblical scholars and historians who attempt to rely simply on the normative academic methodology of secular historians and students of religion – or they take refuge in the rather doubtful assertion that “no evidence has been discovered to prove that ( their supernaturalist reading of) the Biblical accounts is wrong.”
d. In addition to this rather hard-line minority there are many other Christians whose views on the authority and historical accuracy of the Christian scriptures are not so clear cut, but who nevertheless feel that they do or should accept in some sense a supernaturalist position when it comes to the resurrection stories at least if they are to remain practising Christians. Those like me who would argue against this are thus faced with the problem of explaining how it is that those who consider themselves to be the most conservative and thus authentic defenders of the faith have come to adopt flawed supernaturalist positions if not as regards all of the miracles in the Bible, then certainly as regards the resurrection.
14. How Supernaturalist Thinking Grows Today.
a. As we shall see this is a complex issue, but as regards Christians the place to start is again not with texts, but with the way people think and interpret their religious experience. I would thus ask supernaturalist Christians to think back on just how it was that they came as individuals to adopt their way of understanding the resurrection stories. My comments are based upon a large number of discussions with supernaturalist Christians from different backgrounds, particularly Evangelicals, but also Catholics about how they came to have faith in Jesus Christ as their Saviour.
b. What I see is that people become Christians (be they Catholics, Anglicans or Evangelicals) when Jesus “comes alive” for them and they commit themselves to following his Way. How this happens may be deeply influenced by family relationships and by denominational tradition. It may grow from hearing Jesus’ life story and teaching well expounded by good teachers or preachers who are able to bring the stories alive and show how they relate to everyday life. It may be by reading the gospels themselves, which are narrative documents of great dramatic power and vividness. It may be by taking part in Christian worship and devotional acts such as praying and singing and “bible study”, participating in retreats, youth camps, conferences and quiet days, taking part in ceremonies, pilgrimages, rallies or processions, by being moved by participation in such richly symbolic acts as the Christian sacraments, and being inspired by the example and influence of Christians they respect and admire.
c. The process of coming to Christian discipleship is generally a gradual one, though there are often key events and experiences in it. In particular this happens when people come to see the rightness for themselves of the moral teaching of Jesus about the fundamental importance of compassion and integrity and what this means for living. Often this takes place in the context where the person has come to reflect on the past with a strong sense of regret over actions and attitudes which increasingly are seen as unworthy or sinful, as causing suffering to others and as separating one from living “in the spirit of Christ”.
d. Once this has happened and the Gospel story of the life, teaching , death and resurrection of Jesus has come to be seen as striking many chords and as providing the individual with help in making sense of life as a whole and their own life in particular, and when as a result of reflection the person of Jesus becomes increasingly vivid to heart and imagination, then there is a natural tendency to give the words of the story a normative authority, and often to accept them more or less literally as true in the context of religious practice. In doing so almost inevitably there is a blurring of the distinction between what rings true in an emotional and symbolic sense and what is regarded as historically reliable and likely to be the case. Why? Because in a community religious context the stories feel so believable and true. A similar process can be seen taking place in all other religions in the attitudes that develop towards sacred scriptures and the stories they tell. (I have seen this happening with Buddhists despite the explicit teaching of the Buddha that teaching should not be accepted because it is contained in a “sacred writing” or taught by a religious authority, but only if each person sees the truth of it for themselves.)
15. Evangelical Conversion: “Resurrected” and “Born Again”
a. Among Christians who are happy to describe themselves as Evangelicals, this process of moving from religious practice and “devotional” thinking to a supernaturalist and literalist style of thinking often happens in a particularly clear cut way. For them a central place is given to the experience of conversion or re-orientation, which is described as being “born again”. Usually this is identified with a particular religious experience when the person concerned has an overwhelming sense of the presence of Jesus as a living reality, of personal sinfulness and unworthiness, and of a sense of joy, relief and acceptance when a commitment to follow Jesus is made and more or less publicly declared.
b. So central is this experience of conversion seen to be by many Evangelical Christians, that they doubt if people who call themselves Christian and yet cannot point to a similar experience, can really claim to be Christians at all. Certainly it is common practice among Evangelicals to date their Christian life as having started on the day when they were “born again.”
c. Now once Evangelical Christians have come to their faith from a “lukewarm conventional religion” or from right outside as from another religion or from agnosticism, and have had their conversion experience, then, and only then, are they inclined to treat the Christian and Jewish scriptures (the “Old Testament”) as being the “inspired and infallible words of God”. What is more they will often in addition insist on as supernaturalist an interpretation of everything they find in the scriptures as they possibly can. This of course includes holding a supernaturalist view of the resurrection.
d. I would hope that any Evangelical reading this would find this to be an accurate description, though of necessity generalised, of what is the common Evangelical Christian experience. The central point to note is this. The order in which things happen. The experience of conversion is not brought about as a result of a careful analysis of the evidence for and against a physical resurrection of Jesus as if one were investigating the evidence for the Battle of Hastings, but upon an experience of Jesus as a “living” or powerful presence – of a sense of having been convicted, forgiven and accepted, – on a strong sense of “God” being present and powerful. Often this takes place in or shortly after attendance at an evangelistic meeting or service, or even – as in the US – a TV broadcast in which the preaching builds up to a climax where the inadequacy and futility of life without Jesus is emphasised and the ultimate consequences of sin spelt out! A way out is then offered. Turn to Jesus. Have faith. Accept Him as Lord and Saviour. Once they have experienced this then they become part of a community consisting of those who have had a similar experience and who accept the Christian and Jewish scriptures as normative – as their guide to religious practice, belief and action – as the Word of God. Within this context, this mileux, they quickly become “convinced” of the truth of them and learn to interpret them in the same way as others in that Church community.
e. In fact very quickly the new convert finds that to question a supernatural understanding of the truth of the resurrection, miracles or prophecies concerning a Second Coming of Jesus, or to express doubt that the Jewish scriptures really predict in any literal way the coming, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, is to find that the reality of one’s conversion would be questioned. Thus a supernaturalist belief in the resurrection and the miracles of Jesus, and often of “Old Testament” miracles, and even an acceptance of the Genesis creation story as being “historical”, becomes part of a non-negotiable package of beliefs that the convert must accept to be regarded as a ‘sound” and safe Evangelical Christian. Doubt in such matters in fact becomes regarded as evidence of sin, of a failure to submit the heart to God. Not only is doubt itself seen as sin, but it is argued that where Scripture and Reason may appear to conflict, Scripture is to be trusted because the reason of fallible, sinful people is not to be trusted, but is corrupt and self-serving, and in the face of the infinite majesty of God, a pathetic and broken tool to be discarded in favour of “faith”.
f. The point we are noting here is that a careful look at Evangelical conversions today provides us with a good example of how belief in a supernatural resurrection arises and is sustained, and provides clear evidence of how the growth of such beliefs has nothing to do with the careful analysis of historical evidence or philosophical argument, or even with having actually experienced a “miraculous” event. The crowds of newly “born again” coming away from large revivalist meetings have done none of these things. Their concerns have been quite different. They have been deeply moved and personally challenged, they have faced a turning-point in their lives, and certainly the evidence is that for many they will never be the same again. They have tasted the possibility of a new life, a new start, yes, a “resurrection”. (“My son who was dead is alive again”) If that is the case now, why should it have ever been any different?
16. The Effectiveness of the Evangelical Approach to Christian Training and Practice.
a. I would thus argue that the very success of Evangelical religious practice in influencing some people and bringing about in them a substantial change in their thinking and actions – far from being a vindication of supernaturalism, is a particularly telling example of how the use of a particular set of religious and devotional practices can work. Of course most religions have scriptures which are studied, memorised, visualised, meditated and reflected on in order to bring about changes in thinking and behaviour. (Think of the Muslims, Jews and Buddhist monks who consider memorising huge quantities of their scriptures to be a valuable religious training of their minds and attitudes.)
b. This does not mean that historical accuracy is or was ever intended to be the strong point of these scriptures. In fact we should remember that. the concept of writing accurate secular history as we know it was almost unknown to the biblical writers. They were writing religious documents for the early church and the Jewish community to be used for teaching, preaching, imagining and reflecting on in order to inspire Jews to live by the Torah and Christians better to follow the way of Christ.
17. Supernaturalism amongst Evangelicals and Catholics.
a. My reading of the Christian story is that the Evangelicals In the Church have held to the central core of the Way of Jesus in that they have always emphasised that following Jesus is about embarking on a path of spiritual transformation, of salvation, (seeking healing and wholeness) of putting aside a self-centred life, of death to the egotistical self and of rebirth into the Spirit of Christ. They have recognised how a religion of form and convention can become a betrayal of the challenge which the Gospel story presents if forms and conventions are separated from the heart or inner intention.
b. Sadly, in maintaining this in the face of what they have often seen as a complacent and luke-warm religion of convention, they, together with many other Christians who consider their opinions to be “orthodox”, have blinded themselves to the objections there are to a supernatural view of the resurrection and of other miracle stories. In the process they have fundamentally misunderstood the meaning of Christian faith. Paul said that the cross was to the Jews a scandal, and to the Greeks foolishness. By this he meant that Jews could not conceive of a Messiah who would end up crucified if he were truly sent from God, and the Greeks thought that a man who ended up executed must be a failure. Both failed to see that for Paul Jesus’ death was a victory which showed what it means to live out Messiahship and exposes the emptiness of those who seek happiness through selfish behaviour and the accumulation of pleasures and possessions. So many modern Christians have instead come to see the Resurrection (understood in supernatural terms) not the cross, as the stumbling block, and in so doing have replaced a moral and spiritual challenge with a call to the “Jew and the Greek” to believe in the unbelievable.
c. The Catholic Church has also emphasised the centrality of spiritual transformation if one is to follow the way of Christ and unlike Protestant Evangelicals has a tradition which has always consciously used and valued stories, ceremonies, symbols and the arts in the service of developing a public and private Christian spirituality. It also has (abandoned by Protestants) the monastic tradition of celibate communities devoting themselves to sustained discipline, prayer, meditation and spiritual training. It is thus particularly sad that ever since the Catholic reaction to Modernism the Church has adopted an uncompromisingly literal supernaturalist approach to miracles and the stories of the resurrection.
d. Two examples of how things could have been different. Ever since the young Bernadette had a vision of Mary at the cave in Lourdes millions have gone there on pilgrimage seeking healing, but the Church stipulates that healings may only be regarded as genuine miracles if doctors confirm them naturally inexplicable and in no sense psychosomatic. This devalues the practice and experience of the millions who visit the shrine and derive considerable benefit, both psychological and physical. In fact for many there is real healing derived through their experience of visiting the shrine, reaffirming religious commitment and participating in worship. If the essence of miracle was to be seen not as an inexplicable event, but as in the case of Paul, as an outer sign of an experience of transformation, re-orientation, new beginning, then the search for the “inexplicable” could be abandoned.
e. Another strange ruling of the Church is the criteria used in Canonisation, the process by which the Church comes to recognise someone as being a saint. It is expected that proof be provided that the candidate performed or was closely associated with a supernaturally defined miracle. This it would seem is supposed to increase their spiritual and moral authority. Would Mother Theresa of Calcutta be more or less of a saint if an unexplained healing happened in her hospice compared to her dedication to serve “the poorest of the poor?”
18. The Credibility of Supernaturalism
a. Let us remind ourselves just what the credibility problems of supernaturalism are. Those who hold to supernaturalism at the very least would have us accept as historical fact that the body of Jesus vanished from the tomb after his death, that Jesus subsequently re-appeared in a variety of settings when he was recognised and touched by some of his closest disciples, and that he ate food before again disappearing.
b. Such events, to take place in the real world, as opposed to in the imagination, entail us believing that a massive abrogation of natural processes took place. To accept it is to regard the scientific approach to the world as being a logically consistent system of cause and effect (which is also the ancient Buddhist approach) as fundamentally wrong, and that “the real world” is in fact subject to having its consistency overridden by unpredictable “acts of God.”
c. This is asking us to accept a rejection of the accumulated principles theories and methods of modern science, built as they are upon observation, the development of hypotheses, testing and the evaluation of degrees of probability. In real life common sense and scientific thinking agree that bodies do not and cannot behave in the way described in the Gospel accounts of the resurrection (not to mention a great number of the other miracle stories)
d. The supernatural view is then to argue that this was a scientifically inexplicable, unique event, and unique events by definition cannot be investigated by scientific method, because they are non-repeatable.
e. The answer to that has to be that of course one must be prepared to accept the possibility of unique and inexplicable events happening. To refuse to do so would be to have a closed mind and not be open to evidence or argument and thus to cease to be scientific. The starting point however, must always be credible evidence that the event actually happened. Theories have to accommodate themselves to that. In fact that is how science works. A new phenomenon is observed and theories have then to be revised to take account of it.
f. . Many things have remained without adequate scientific explanation for a very long time, ( e.g. gravity, radiation, the nature of fundamental particles ) and new discoveries usually uncover even more that needs to be explained, and sometimes scientific and historical theories have to be revised or discarded when they no longer correspond to known facts. The point is has an event been observed which cannot be explained?
19. Parapsychology: Telepathy, Psychokinesis and Findhorn.
a. For example for many years there has been a running battle in the British Psychological Association over Parapsychology, about whether or not such phenomena as telepathy and Psychokinesis have in fact been observed. If there is good evidence for the phenomena then this needs to be investigated further and money spent on research. If however, reports of such phenomena are the result of either fraud or wishful thinking on the part of the scientist reporting them, then there is no event to be investigated, and no phenomenon that scientific theory needs to explain. It follows that those who behave as if there is are basing any further research they do on a misperception, on error, and are wasting their tine.
b. An example which raised these issues is the Findhorn Community in Scotland, a semi-religious New Age operation which has been going for about thirty years. Some of its members claimed that there has been a quite remarkable growth of plants in the rather infertile conditions there, and that this is because attention has been paid to the local spiritual presences or fairies. Before the Biology Department from Edinburgh University send a research fellow to spend months investigating this, they would first need to see if there is on the face of it a case to answer, that there are significant unexplained phenomena worth investigating. Is there actual evidence of abnormal plant growth etc. or is there really nothing to see? Is the report possibly the result of an enthusiastic misperception on the part of individuals who believe in fairies for no objective reason, but who find the idea of helpful local spirits in trees and plants to be a satisfying way of thinking which helps them relate better to nature and better able to cope with their lives? Only in the face of some clear evidence of say abnormal growth with no obvious cause would it become an issue worth investigating further from a natural science point of view. Of course from a Religious Studies of Social Anthropological point of view it would still be well worth investigating why refugees from modern urban life should adopt such a mode of thinking.
20. The Turin Shroud.
a. The Turin Shroud is a linen cloth kept in Turin Cathedral. It bears the marks in negative of a crucified body taken to be that of Jesus and is another interesting example of the issues raised. Work by American space scientists from NASA using all the latest high tech gear came up with apparent discoveries which seemed to point to the shroud being that in which the body of Jesus was wrapped, according to the Gospels, before he was laid in a tomb. Much was also made of the “inexplicable” nature of the marking upon it as only being consistent with a searing of the linen by the body becoming momentarily very hot and then presumably evaporating. For a time then it seemed that the shroud was providing the only photographic image of a person of the first century, and that the image was Jesus himself! What is more here was evidence of a scientifically inexplicable” disappearance of his physical body.
b. This all provoked great interest, including among some highly reputable New Testament scholars (John Robinson) In an investigative programme made for the BBC however, a research student from the Royal College of Art specialising in faking techniques was able to make a replica of the shroud and by using very simple ageing techniques was able to demonstrate how the image was made (it was simply painted) and its age. His judgement was that it was a straightforward medieval religious artefact. Since then after a lot of coyness from the Vatican a triple blind test involving three separate laboratories using the latest radio-carbon dating system showed conclusively that the Shroud is medieval.
21 Supernaturalism and Evidence
a. Looking at the case of Findhorn and the Turin Shroud we get a good idea of what would count as plausible, serious evidence for the existence of an unexplainable or really baffling event and both these cases failed them. Of course the supernaturalist Christians who now accept that the Turin Shroud is a medieval Catholic creation will be quick to assert that this still does not prove that in Jesus tomb an inexplicable event did not take place. True. I might find it very difficult indeed, perhaps impossible, to prove that there are not fairies at work in the Findhorn gardens, or that flying saucers have not landed, or that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is not able to get people to levitate etc.. etc. The point is that if an assertion about the occurrence of an unexplained event cannot be disproved, it is not sensible or rational to regard it as worth taking seriously in an historical, or scientific sense, unless there is good evidence to support its existence.
b. These cases however, and a much publicised and hysterical healing campaign carried out by the Pentecostal evangelist “Dr” Cerillo in London, illustrate another important point, which is how gullible many people are and how badly many want to believe that wondrous events have in fact taken place. The proliferation of books and accounts about such events which make their writers rich, but which turn out to be based on forged, misleading or fanciful evidence is legion. It is also a fact that there is money to be made writing such books (von Daniken, Lyall Watson) which purport to support supernaturalism, and very little or nothing to be earned by performing an honest careful job exposing them.
22. The Christian Scriptures as Evidence
a. It is now time to look again at the Christian records. What we have are ancient and carefully copied writings which the study of manuscripts shows have survived virtually unchanged since they were written. In the case of Paul’s letters, in particular Galatians and 1 Corinthians, we have no description of what the “appearance” to him of Jesus was. His is the only ‘eye-witness” account. He never refers to an empty tomb and there is no reason whatsoever to assert that Paul understood the resurrection appearance to him of Jesus to have been other than spiritual, psychological, interior, essentially subjective. We may speculate that he had a vision, or simply an overwhelming sense that Jesus was alive and with him, but just what he experienced we will never know.
b. Luke, the writer of Acts, does describe what happened to Paul, and it is interesting that someone as keen on visualisable narrative or even outright supernaturalism, describes the event ambiguously. Paul, he says, saw a light, those with him heard a voice. Really? or did Luke simply wish they had? Again his account is written many years after the event and Paul’s death, and cannot be regarded as constituting strong historical evidence for the occurrence of an inexplicable event.
c. When we turn to the Gospels unlike Paul, there is a great deal about the life, teaching, final week, death and resurrection of Jesus. However all four documents bear the marks of being written after a considerable period of oral tradition by unknown writers using now uncheckable sources. In fact modern biblical scholarship makes it abundantly clear just what remarkable and extremely carefully composed documents these are. Each has its own style and “theology”and while three of them show that they were written with the earliest, Mark, to refer to, the way they amend, rearrange (sometimes radically) and re-interpret their common source is very instructive. They employ every device such as quotation and typology from the Jewish scriptures to make it clear that they intend to continue and “fulfil” that tradition, and they are clearly designed to be used in the contexts of Christian liturgical worship and religious practice.
d. Throughout all four of them continuously use wondrous and strange events and activities, visions, dreams, transformations, healings, exorcisms, and foreseeing to put across their claim that healing and wholeness, forgiveness, a new beginning, a second birth, a resurrection is made possible by following the way of Christ. What is more in addition to the stories of Jesus rising from the dead they all have stories of others rising from the dead, a little girl, Jesus’ friend Lazarus, and the almost casual mention in Matthew that many rose from the dead in Jerusalem after Jesus was crucified.
d. Now if it is claimed, as I think it is highly unlikely because of their nature, that the writers of these meticulously constructed documents intended from the beginning that they should be read as accurate history (like their contemporary the Roman Suetonious’account of the reign of twelve emperors). and that they intended to make assertions that supernatural events have taken place in history and that the coming alive of Jesus in visible, objective (video-recordable?) form after death by crucifixion is the chief of them, then it has to be recognised that the accounts we have do not amount to more than hearsay evidence at the most.
e. The gospels – treated as historical evidence for supernatural unexplained phenomena – amount to no more than second or third-hand assertions, assertions which cannot be checked, corroborated, proved or disproved. As Professor Houlden says in his chapter on the resurrection in his book Connections, written after a life-time of academic biblical study “The historical evidence is then, complex, diverse, indirect and essentially obscure. No amount of faith or church authority can, as we now see, alter its character or increase its force None of the evidence takes us close enough to the origins for a historian to say with assurance what happened.” (Connections p143 SCM Press ‘86)
f. In saying this I am not arguing, as some would, that the gospels do not provide us with sufficient evidence to claim that quite a bit can be said about the life, teaching and death of Jesus which carries reasonable historical credibility. When however it comes to judging claims about the occurrence of supernatural events – which even the most ardent supernaturalist would agree are comparatively rare and special, and everyone else would argue are intrinsically far from probable – then as our examination of modern examples shows, much better evidence is needed for the acceptance of such claims to amount to anything more, from an historical or scientific point of view, than unsubstantiated assertions. In other words the Gospels cannot legitimately be used as evidence to substantiate the existence of supernatural miracles.
23. How Supernaturalism Misses the Point
a. Reflecting on how scriptures are intended to be used in devotional and religious practice should lead one to see that because stories are not based on sound evidence in the literal and scientific sense, it does not mean they are fraudulent or meaningless, particularly when they are used in a context which shows they are part of a system of values and symbols through which people make sense of their lives.
b. The people of Findhorn clearly have believed in spiritual presences and have found their belief useful to them. Their stories are not simply nonsense or fraudulent, but express a deeply felt conviction about the sacredness of the earth and life on it. It is very similar to the Australian Aboriginal stories about their land and their elaborate “totem” systems. They too were not simply nonsense but an alternative set of symbols much older than the scientific for understanding the working of nature, part of a cultural system with ethical, social and ecological implications which we have every reason to treat with respect.
c. Even the artists and craftsmen who created the Turin Shroud may not have been setting out to perpetrate a fraud, so much as produce a religious artefact that would be a powerful devotional aid and symbol of Jesus’’ suffering.
d. Similarly, I would argue that the resurrection stories were not originally told or written down to mislead or con people into faith in the supernatural, but to be used in Christian worship, meditation and religious practice, to evoke a sense of awe and wonder, to be visualised and imagined as part of the process of letting go of an unsatisfying old way of life and a turning of the mind and heart to follow the Jesus Way, to “Take up your cross and follow me”.
e. The real meaning of the stories is to do with a profound sense of the continuing presence and influence of the pattern of Jesus’ personality upon those who follow him, a presence which transcends his death and gives meaning to their lives as they embody something of his values in their responses and actions.. It is the acceptance of a re-orientation of one’s life which is the heart of the Way of Jesus. This involves dieing to the old life, a letting go of self-centredness, dishonesty, greed and hatred arid a rebirth and resurrection through practising a way of life based on honesty, unselfishness, compassion and integrity. In fact I would go further and say that those who assert. that the heart of the resurrection is to be seen as depending upon the supernatural re-appearance of a dead body are in danger of demeaning, cheapening and radically misrepresenting Jesus and the Gospel writers who sought to witness to him.
f. It is strange to me how many intelligent and sensitive people fail to see this. Is the Sermon on the Mount any the less true if Jesus did not literally rise from the dead and instead his body lies mislaid or dismembered in some lost Palestinian burial pit? Would it then become right to hate your enemy, to lie, to cheat, be a hypocrite, be intolerant, exploit people, value possessions above people, show no concern or compassion for others just because Jesus’ bones were found tomorrow?
g. It hardly needs to be said, surely, that to live in tune with the structure of the way things are, what Jesus called “the Kingdom of Heaven”, remains as it is and always has been. If we are to live as aware and responsible human beings i.e. we will see for ourselves that to follow the Way that Jesus advocated (which is not that different from the spiritual way other great religious teachers have advocated (Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and yes many secular humanists) is equally relevant to good times as to bad, to living in suburbia, monastery, on the farm or in prison, in the first century of the present era, or the twentieth.
h. It can also be seen and experienced that the reward of so doing is immediate and deep. Any talk of the “joys of heaven” or anything else (“the pains of Hell!”) which is external to acting with an open and honest heart in a way that avoids deliberately causing suffering to others, is surely no more than metaphor.
24. What if Supernaturalism Were True?’
a. What happens if you assume the opposite to be the case and the supernaturalists to be right? What if the Turin Shroud had turned out to be genuine, if it had indeed appeared to offer the possibility of providing clear, visible objective evidence of the existence, appearance and manner of death of Jesus, and possibly also some evidence of the existence of an inexplicable event concerning his body after it was placed in the tomb. Or what would happen if a volume of authenticated eye-witness accounts to the physical resurrection were to be dug up with it?
b. Would such strong evidence of the likely occurrence of inexplicable supernatural or even of just “wondrous” events make the Christian religion or the perceived character and teaching of Jesus more credible or impressive and worthy of respect, or less so? Would it make Christians more compassionate, more Christ-like or simply more arrogant? Would it bring about the mass “conversions” of atheists, secular unbelievers or of Hindus, Jews and Muslims to Christianity, and if it did what sort of “conversions” would these be? Or would not many be honest and consistent to persist in seeing such evidence as fraud, forgery, the work of the Great Satan or the CIA? Would people become more or less gullible when new claims for supernatural events were made, and would people become more or less prepared to assume responsibility for their actions?
c. We only have to think about the possibility of living in a world in which supernatural events were an established reality to realise that everything would have changed in our expectations and understanding of life. It would be like stepping into some sort of Science Fiction nightmare where people suddenly learn that they are not in control of themselves, but that they and the whole earth are under the subtle and at times not so subtle domination of an alien power convinced that all it caused to happen to you was benign – only it did not feel that way.
d. The longer one thinks about such potential scenarios the more insane and ludicrous does a literal, acceptance of supernaturalism become and the further is it from life as we actually experience it. .In fact of course it is one of the most obvious marks of the mentally ill and insane that such people do inhabit without any choice their own idiosyncratic supernaturalist worlds – worlds complete with angels, demons, disembodied voices, nightmarish figures, persecutors, visions, and special appearances from Jesus and his blessed Mother telling them to do strange things.
e. Despite all this being quite obvious the enthusiastic supernaturalism of the insecure and neurotic remains remarkably persistent in our high tech world. The purveyors of astrology, Tarot, I Ching, palmistry etc. continue to do well catering as shamans and medicine men have done before them to the continuing need of so many for some special way of making decisions about the future which will give them a sense of certainty that they are making the right choices in a confusing and threatening world. (Remember Nancy Reagan rescheduling the summit with Gorbachev))
25. Supernaturalism in the Arts and Popular Culture.
a. At a time of the rapid globalisation of mass culture and above all in the films and videos which saturate the world, it is fascinating to notice the persistence and continued recycling of all the mythic stories and symbols which humanity has used since pre-history. Supernatural events and fantasy worlds are dominating themes in contemporary mass culture to an extraordinary and surely unforeseen extent. In an increasingly secularised world where everywhere the grip of traditional religions (despite the clamour of “fundamentalists” ) is slipping, this is quite strange and seems to show that the authors of all these things are responding to a very deep and continuing human need, and a persistent pattern of thinking. A need which in the past was certainly being catered for in the supernatural elements of the Christian scriptures.
b. At the same time this use of supernaturalism in horror films, cartoons, science fiction and particularly in children’s literature is everywhere recognised as inhabiting the world of play and fantasy, as being part of a temporary suspension of disbelief. It does not, nor is it intended, to induce in those who use it any acceptance that the supernaturalist modes may be “true” outside the context where the suspension of disbelief is meant to operate, be it book, cinema, theatre or TV screen. Is the function of such supernaturalism simply to provide escape, time out from the pressures of life? I suspect not. I suspect its use is deeply wired into our brains, is part of the way we communicate, and is linked to our hunger for satisfying and stirring stories, ceremonies and symbols, for the arts. At the same time the fantasy nature of such supernaturalist material of course is something even the youngest child can quickly recognise as being just that. When a small child brings me a toy “cup of tea” I am expected to drink it, but the child also knows there is really no tea there. The campaign lead by some Evangelical Christians against dice, video games and children’s literature which incorporate supernaturalism in their story lines as well as their attack on children dressing up as witches for Halloween typically fail to appreciate this distinction.
c. Sometimes, either by design or as a by-product some fictional stories incorporating the supernatural (like for example Macbeth) reach the level of significant myth, metaphor or parable with something deeply resonant to say about the human condition. When this happens great literature, art, film, theatre, or music can result which goes beyond entertainment and becomes spiritually significant – a vehicle of insight and wisdom. This is the point at which the arts come closest to religion. They may also overlap in another way we often forget. Today we think of religion and religious practice as taking place in one area of life, and entertainment in another. Religion and worship is serious, not entertaining. This is rather Puritan and was not of course how it was seen in medieval times. Nor is it always seen as such today. Religion can and always has incorporated colour and music, dance and procession, drama and ritual, display and celebration. It is where the arts originated
d. With regard to the resurrection and miracle stories in the Gospels and in Acts this does however raise the possibility that the incorporation of supernatural elements in all of them, is there to heighten interest, grab attention, incite, engage and emphasise to the listener that here is something much more than a mundane story or a dry moral message, and that above all what it has to say is gripping, not boring.
b. In addition Supernaturalism is attractive as a sort of fantasy or wish fulfilment mechanism, as something people can pretend to themselves is true, or hope that it might be true, or act as though it were true in certain circumscribed and safe areas of life – while taking some care to make sure such actions do not impinge upon the working of the “real world”, in particular the areas of work, economics, politics, science and technology. This is because they recognise that in reality the world is not like that and if it was, as the ancient story of Midas’s touch illustrates so well, life would be a nightmare.
26. The Confusing Question of Faith
a. Many Christians are quick to say that their belief in Jesus and his supernatural powers is a matter of faith not reason as if they have said something significant by this. They compare “having faith” with being “faithless.” In so doing I think they miss the point. Surely it is better simply to speak of having faith as having trust. For example I trust in the integrity or the love of certain people in my life. This trust is not blind, but is based on past and present experience, and as such is quite reasonable, if stricly speaking unprovable. Similarly I trust in much of the teaching of Jesus as the gospels describe it, such as “love your neighbour as yourself”, not out of blind faith, but as a result of personal experience and sustained reflection. If I try to act on that teaching I am not being irrational or unreasonable, but neither is it inevitable that I do so. Many consider they will be better off if they put their trust in simply “looking after number one”.
b. As I see it then, one can trust particular people, one can trust in a set of teachings about the nature of the world and of ourselves, one can trust in a series of moral values, and one can trust in a community and a tradition as embodying and exhibiting some of these values. Having faith in this sense, is not irrational, though at times it can be sorely tested to the point where the idividual may have to choose between the truth as they see it, feel it, and think it, and what the trusted persons, set of rules or community asserts.
c. Having such faith or reasonable trust of course should also involve us in a recogniton that what appears reasonable to me, may appear significantly less so or different to someone else who has had different experiences, formation and background. The faith or trust of a Muslim in Islam may be just as reasonable as the faith or trust of a Christian in the Way of Christ, or the trust of a Buddhist in the Noble Eightfold Path, or of a Humanist in fundamental human rights, or of a Jew in the Torah.
d To confuse this sort of trust (in a person or persons, set of teachings, moral values and cultural traditions) with faith in the sense of asserting that one accepts as a matter of religious duty that a series of naturally unexplainable events took place as signs to humanity of the superiority and divine authentication of ones chosen path, is to compound one error upon another. To believe an unexplainable event happened without good evidence that it actually took place, but simply as “an act of faith” is simply to be gullible and credulous. To then declare to those outside and inside the community that what you accept “by faith” is a reason why you or others should regard your path as the ultimate truth is to turn credulity into bombastic intolerance. What is more to regard unexplained events as having any bearing on the truth or moral authority of a teaching, the integrity of a person or the value of a tradition is simply to miss the point as to what gives any person, teaching or community moral or spiritual authority.
26. The Religious Irrelevance of Supernaturalism.
a. Supernaturalist thinking which denies or forgets the special nature of supernatural stories and attempts to intrude itself into “the real world” is always with us. The point of the story of Jesus’ three temptations does seem to have been to emphasise the irrelevance of supernaturalism to his mission. If Jesus did have the power to turn stones into bread or to throw himself from the top of the Temple and then float down unharmed, it would not improve or clarify his teaching about the nature of the Kingdom of God one bit. In fact it would mislead and confuse. What he had to do was the straightforward but difficult bit, simply “serve God”, practice what he knew to be true with integrity.
b. This story is similar to one told of the Buddha who heard that one of his monks was practising levitation and attracting great crowds to see him. The Buddha sent word to the monk rebuking him for being distracting and telling him only to teach “the cause and cure of Suffering (dhukkha)”.
c. The desire for supernatural miracle and inexplicable event, not as symbol or metaphor, not as drama, but as actual fact is the desire for sensation and an easy way out. It is the path of superstition, magic, and at its worst insanity. It leads to crude and unworthy views of both human beings and any God they might claim to worship. It is the path of the charlatan, the escapist and the seriously neurotic – of whom there are and always have been many. This has been recognised by mature and perceptive teachers in all the major religious traditions who have been quick to warn against the dangers of superstition, for in the end that is what it is.
d. Surely when we think about it we can see that “supernatural miracles” or “inexplicable events”, even if they were to occur, can never demonstrate that Jesus was the Christ, that Siddhartha Gautama was a Buddha, a Fully Enlightened Being, or that Muhammad was in truth the Seal of the Prophets. As metaphors and visualisations supernatural stories have their important place, but regarded as “proofs” or “evidence” such stories add absolutely nothing to the spiritual and moral authority of a religious teacher – or anyone else. The words of the centurion in Mark’s gospel are much more to the point. Seeing how Jesus endured the horrors of crucifixion he said, “Truly, this man was a son of God.”
e. It is seeing courage, integrity, compassion, insight and wisdom which inspire in a lasting way.
28. Christian Theology and Religious Studies.
a. At the start of this paper I asserted that there is something wrong in applying the way Christians have come to argue about miracles and the supernatural to other religions and asserted that it was the result of Christian theology being taught as a subject on its own and not within the wider context of the study of religion. For example the Oxford Theology website for 2000 states, “while there are opportunities to study other religious traditions and the phenomena of religion, the Oxford course places these subjects within the general context of a Christian understanding of religious faith.” When the course is further examined and it becomes clear that while the study of New Testament Greek is compulsory but the study of any tradition other than the Christian or ancient Hebrew is not, then one has to wonder if undergraduates are not being offered something less than an intellectually honest course. It is encouraging to see that Cambridge is in the process of introducing a new Theology and Religious Studies Tripos which places the study of Christianity in a much wider muti-disciplinary and muti-religious context which it rightly advertises as a strength. Smart and Constantine in their Christian Systematic Theology in a World Context spell out in careful detail why they think “it is an absurdity that often the study of world religions is placed institutionally under Christian divinity schools”. Basically this is because to attempt to articulate a Christian world view without taking into account the other major religions and belief systems and ways of examining them and thinking about them, is simply ignoring the world as it is. If this is done If this is done it immediately becomes obvious that the use of story, ceremony, symbol, moral rules and teachings are common traits of all religions and spiritual traditions and that like should be compared with like. as well as what is different. One comes to see that religions are cultural systems that enable individuals to function as members of communities with shared values and standards and that this gives people a sense of purpose as participators in a wider story.
b. If I am correct in arguing that the literal supernaturalism of evangelical and traditionalist are in fact a radical misunderstanding of the original intentions and primary use of the gospel stories, then the rise and development of this misunderstanding needs to be carefully explored and exposed. The period which I think needs to be particularly examined is the 16th and 17th centuries when scientific thinking and secular philosophy really got going.
c. It seems to me that there is something quite different about the naive “supernaturalism” of an African or an Aboriginal for whom the spirit world is an almost tangible reality, and the Evangelical teacher with a Ph.D. (usually in Physics) who asserts the reality of evil spirits at work in today’s world and that Jesus rose bodily from the dead. The poor (In both senses) Pentecostal followers of Morris Cerillo who believe God uses the doctor to perform “miracles” of healing fall in between the two. Again one can have a respect for the supernaturalist way a West Indian Pentecostal woman who works as an office cleaner expresses her faith, which if similarly expressed by the said Ph.D. seems self-deluding and a case of false consciousness.
d. Again if one’s starting point is the study of religion in general and several religions in particular, then an important peculiarity appears. It is only Christianity that attempts to use the argument that the authority of the founder or the truth of his teaching is based in some sense upon the occurrence of miraculous supernatural events. For example the medieval Jewish scholar Miamonedes claimed that Moses wrote the Torah and was inspired by God, not that all the Torah miracle stories such as the crossing of the Red Sea be taken literally and the rabbis have always taken the story of Adam and Eve as a metaphor. For Muslims the only real miracle is that God spoke to the prophet — something he doubted himself at first. What convinced his wife and his followers was not that he performed signs and wonders that could not be explained or even that he spoke of visions, but what she and they saw as the sensible and moral content of his teaching about how Allah expected people to behave. Similarly the account of the Buddha’s enlightenment under the Bo tree is not a supernatural event to be believed in, but a vivid image expressing the conclusion one might reach after reflecting on his teachings and following his practice. The case is similar as regards the enlightenment of the writers of the Vedas or the great Hindu or Sikh gurus. In fact the key point about the use of scriptures by Hindus and Buddhists has not been how historically true they are, but rather how useful they are in encouraging visualisation in meditation or for help in developing spiritual practice and guiding moral conduct.
e. Only “evangelical” ,“trad” and Catholic Christianity makes the acceptance of historically and scientifically improbable events a test of faith or a demonstration of authenticity. This idiosyncrasy of the Christian tradition raises again the question, did Christianity, like the other traditions, start off with “supernaturalism” being primarily regarded as a device, a way of thinking, talking and imagining to stir the emotions in worship and spiritual practice, and has Christianity been gradually hijacked by literal supernaturalism as the Church attempted to grapple with the challenge of sharper philosophy and the emergence of science., technological, social and cultural change?
f. My approach is corroborated by the scholar and writer on religion Karen Armstrong. In her latest book (The Battle for God) on the rise of modern fundamentalism Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu she sees all these “as fearful reactions to modernity, especially the modernist predisposition for materialist reason and empirical evidence which appear to deny the possibility of truths being expressed by the symbolic systems of religion. At the same time she sees these modern fundamentalisms as having been infected by the scientific devaluation of religious language, myth and symbol by insisting wherever possible on their sacred writings being literally true.” (Review by Ray Olson Booklist Magazine www)
g. Of course all religions have their miraculous and supernaturalist stories and their “folk religion” aspects ,( as I have argued, in a basic sense supernaturalism is endemic, simply part of the way humans think in vivid and memorable pictures and stories, something which is found in all cultures,) but nowhere is belief in the occurrence of scientifically inexplicable events central to the structure of the tradition. To believe in one God and that God “speaks” to humanity showing us how to live, and that “God’s presence surrounds us” and we should seek to live in harmony with the essential principles which are built into things (Torah, Logos, Dharma, Dhamma, Koran, Truth) by God is something quite different from believing a resuscitated dead body provides evidence that God ‘intervenes”. This means modern Christianity has saddled itself with a particularly serious credibility problem the other religions do not have to face.
Jesus A Question of Identity. J.L. Houlden. SPCK 92.
Connections. The Integration of Theology and Faith. J.L. Houlden SCM ‘86.
See the chapter on The Resurrection.
A Handbook of Living World Religions. Ed. John Hinnells. Penguin 86.
Christian Systematic Theology in a World Context.
Ninian Smart & Steven Constantine Fortress Press 91.
Science and the Soul by Angela Tilby SPCK ‘92
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