The Final Authority

In his comment on my post Only One World, Jin said, "I'd like to think that I, myself, gave up The Final Authority posturing a while ago."

Well, Jin, I commend your sentiments. Giving up the hyper-authoritative posture is an admirable goal. However, I'm not sure it's possible to do that and remain Christian according to most of your religion's traditional history.

Lots of people disagree with me on this (and vehemently so), but I don't see how one can subscribe to the Christian worldview without feeling some kind of security in the authority of that position. Furthermore, so long as you feel security in the authority and veracity of your belief system, I don't know how you're going to give up that "Final Authority" posture without giving up the core tenets of that system.

The Christian religion is structured around a simple proposition: God created the universe and rules everything in it. Everything else comes from or is connected to that core belief. You can quibble about predestination or freewill, argue over the nature of salvation, and debate the trinity, but if you are a Christian, there is no questioning the centrality and sovereignty of your God.

Once you have that sovereign God idea, the next thing you have to do is establish the relationship between humans and God. This is where you're going to hit a major snag if you don't want to sound like some hyper-authoritative jerk. If you truly believe, along with the Westminster Shorter Catechism that "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever," then you consequently must believe that those people who, like me, do not glorify God and enjoy him must be in some kind of faulty relationship with God. The catechism says nothing about "The Christian's chief end," but is quite clear about Man's chief end. (Apologies for the sexist language--I'm just working with the source material as-is.)

Or, if instead of the WSC you prefer the Nicene creed, then you "believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen," and that he, as incarnated in Jesus, "will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end." Again, your beliefs necessarily encompass not just yourself, but everyone else, too. That is, you are basically required to believe that people like me still fall under the judgment of God, even if we don't believe in him. That's pretty authoritative.

On top of all that, as a Christian, you are required to let me know about all of this:

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:19-20)

Not that I'm trying to push you into being a jerk about your faith. I just mean to point out that Christianity is by nature authoritative, and its adherents are required to be emissaries of that authority. So there's a problem with being a tolerant Christian, because tolerance of other beliefs is not built in to Christianity. Once you become tolerant, you are really dethroning the authority of your religion, and you are either no longer a Christian as Christianity has long been intended, or you have drastically altered the shape of your religion. Of course, theology has always been historically conditioned, responding to the challenges of each different age, so I won't fault you if you choose the route of theological innovator. There's a long and glorious tradition there. (Recall, however, that theological innovation is the reason why we have Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant branches of the church.)

However, if you decide to become a tolerant Christian, then you can no longer really buy into all the old dogmas about God being sovereign over the entire universe. You must accept Buddhists and Hindus and Atheists, too. Then you are left with a faith that is decidedly immanent, human-centered, and outward-reaching, rather than transcendent and god-centered. Religious tolerance requires that you see all human beings on an equal footing in the same universe, each of us answering the same questions in different ways. Surely you know these famous three questions: Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? Every person grapples with these questions to some degree, even atheists. If you are going to be tolerant, then the people and their questions are central to your religion, and "God" must be whatever they find in the answers. This is sometimes called the "all roads lead to god" theory.

Ultimately, however, we must be honest and admit to ourselves that the purpose of tolerance is that we, as human beings, the silly monkeys who have to live together, prefer peaceable relations to conflicting ones. Most of us would rather live in harmony with our neighbors than in strife. I know I certainly would.

The interesting thing about religious tolerance is that it tends to show up in places where religious diversity is greatest. For instance, in the colonial United States. Early on, different religious groups clustered together in mostly homogenous communities. There were Puritans, Quakers, Baptists, Anglicans, Mennonites, Huguenots, Moravians, and others. At first, they mostly kept to themselves. But as commerce spread between them, and people migrated, and communities became more diverse, tensions arose, especially when states had "established" religions. For instance, in Massachusetts, the Congregational church was the "established" church, meaning it received financial support from the public coffers. Naturally, other groups weren't too fond of this idea, especially the Baptists (who were often instrumental in establishing early forms of the religious freedoms we enjoy today in the United States). Eventually, people decided that they would prefer to get along with one another and live in harmony, while still disagreeing about religious matters, rather than maintain established state religions. Hence, our Constitution makes it illegal for the federal government to establish a religion.

Establishing religious freedom and tolerance is a very pragmatic move. It demonstrates that people, even when they are deeply concerned with their religious beliefs, are still willing to work together and compromise when it comes to day-to-day life. To me, that's a powerful statement about the potential of the human race.

Is it possible to believe that your religion is The Be All and End All of metaphysical systems, while still accepting that other people have different beliefs you will not forcibly infringe? I don't think so. I think that religious tolerance requires the breaking down of the universally authoritative aspect of belief. Hence, if you want to be tolerant, and you don't want to be a jerk about your beliefs, and you don't want to have that annoying Final Authority posture, you really do have to give up something central to your religion.