© 2007 UrbisMedia
The word could be translated as “the words of God,” or “the study of God.” Presumably this putative “body of knowledge” is like other –ologies. Except that there is a habeas corpusproblem with this “body”—there isn’t one. So theology is reduced to what the credulous believe(not know) to be the “words of God,” as “divinely inspired” and “spoken” through the authors of the scriptures. That means there is a whole lot of writing that people who call themselves “theologians” then proceed to have all sorts of fun with, making all manner of interpretations, stuffing stuff in between the lines, unearthing secret meanings and messages, predictions and prophecies, you name it. Theology is more artifice than science, hocus pocus that the Pope might decide to write a papal “bull” (ah, such an apt term) about, or some drawler who used to sell roofing and siding can get up with a sprayed pompador and blather bullshit about to the dim and frightened.
Not that there are not quite “intellectual” approaches to theology. I had four courses in it in college, each one involving a boring, thick green book by some booze-besotted Jesuit who, I wished many a time, had been sent off to missions in Melanesia to be dismembered and eaten.[1] That’s about what I remember, given the amount of critical analysis that was encouraged on the subject. Theology isn’t theology; it is what religion has always been, the words of men placed in the mouths of imagined deities. It is, in short, an intellectual joke, much ado about nothing. Since it was also a required course there was no getting my degree in Economics unless I passed my courses (which meant puking up the “correct” interpretations of the “words of God”) in Theology.
Having an –ology lends an air of knowledge and reason to religion, doesn’t it. Gives it a legitimacy in the halls of academe up there with the other –ologies. Makes it sound like proofs of the existence of God and his words from on high have been scientifically and objectively arrived at. Mind you, Theology is not Comparative Religion [2] , which I find more legitimate and even useful; it is indoctrination in the guise of free inquiry. You need that if you are going to have a “one, true , faith.”
Arguing about which religion is the “one true faith,” is a lot like arguing about whether a cloud formation looks like a kangaroo or a set of genitals; perspective, conditioning, and preconceptions—not truth—have everything to do with it. But, unfortunately, unlike clouds, religions tend not to go away. There isn’t any money in cloud shape interpreting, but there’s a lot to be made in shaping people’s minds by clouding their reason.
A person in the Bible group asserted to me that he “knew with certainty” that he was “going to heaven.” He had no doubt about it, he insisted, when I asked how he knew that; he “just knows it.” Well, of course, he can’t possibly know that in any epistemological sense. What he really means is that he really believes it. But therein lies a problem of cloud interpretation. While I am not saying that I know he is not going to heaven—I don’t know that either—I am just saying that I know that he cannot know. I only know that he believes.
Splitting hairs? Not quite. What too of gets split because of this distinction are throats and skulls, and personal relationships, even societies. This is because the mind sometimes has a mind of its own, and doubt is that little demon of the mind that is an equal opportunity pest. In the wee hours, or weak moments, when the guard of religious conditioning might be let down, even the true believer has to admit that doubts sneak through—little “what ifs,” like what if there is no God—only for a fleeting moment perhaps; but the mind knows that if the existence of God is a statement, then its negative is also implied If you won’t even let yourself think that thought, it’s still there. Damn those little doubt demons!
True believers don’t like that. They’re engaging in a constant process of self mind control, keeping those doubt demons at bay like someone filling sandbags against a flood, or nailing their closet door shut to keep boogeymen out of their bedroom. They like to say that this is just the work of the devil, Satan’s way of trying to trick you with irreligious thoughts. Any non-believing thought is an evil thought. So, categorically, they are wrong; it’s not the work of a logical mind, but the work of the devil.
This is where it gets nasty. That means that people who come along and say that there is no God, or just that their might not be God, are sewers of doubt and, if not the devil himself, in his employ or clutches. They are either evil of infected with evil, and you know what you have to do with evil—put them to the sword.
Now, back to the one true faith. My Bible group mate claims to know that he is certainly going to heaven because he is a believer in the one, true faith, in his case that’s Christianity, or at least the version of it he believes. Sometimes, more vexing than the doubters are those who claim that their faith is the one, true faith. The epistemological doubter may wish only to have the right to make a claim that God and eternity cannot be known—without having their throat slit for saying so. It’s not prosyletizing, they just want to be able to exercise the right of “nah.”[3]
But true believers are not content to have a philosophical distinction between belief and knowledge because that leads to the distinction between faith and reason, which leads to the distinction between church and state. Once those distinctions become established and codified the true believer loses the right to slit the throats of those who would say “nah” to their theology. The true believer wishes of course for no distinction between his church and (whatde facto becomes) his State. If you don’t think this has already happened then you need to read some history. If you don’t think this is happening again, then you need to pull your head out of your drawers.
Just remember, when somebody says that cloud looks like Jesus arriving on Judgment Day, be careful in saying you think it looks like toad riding a grasshopper, be careful even just saying “nah.” He just might be the head of your local morality police.
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©2007, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 6.2.2007)
[1] One of my Theology instructors was the infamous (in my view) Daniel Berrigan, S.J. Berrigan became a darling of the Vietnam anti-war movement and author of The Trial of the Catonsville Nine. But closer up he was a pompous little twerp, and he gave me a “C” on the very same book report (on Thomas Merton’s The Seven Story Mountain )—and I mean verbatim—that my roommate gave him the year before and got a “B+”. Berrigan thought, of course, that he got his theology directly from the Source.
[2] See Karen Armstrong’s A History of God .
[3] “Nah” means, sorry, that just ain’t good enough.