I believe all beliefs are based on assumptions. Assumptions are primary building blocks in the formation of organized systems, including science, politics, philosophy, and religion. Of course that statement in and of itself is also an assumption. Assumptions are not necessarily bad, but important to identify. Yet even identifying assumptions utilizes assumptions.
As I was leaving the grocery store one day, an Arab couple, dressed in full Muslim attire, was exiting ahead of me. An elegant elderly woman right in front of me turned to me and said, “If they want to live in our country they could at least dress like us and talk like us!” Without giving it a second thought, I replied, “Ma’am, if you carry that logic to its natural conclusion, then you and I should be dressed like and speaking like Native Americans.” Surprisingly, she paused and then said, “Well, I guess you’re right.” She recognized her misguided assumption and its resulting narrow perspective.
While some assumptions are true, there are two common types of false assumptions: false negatives and false positives. A false negative assumes, for instance, that if a given type of event has not occurred in our small frame of reference, then it has never occurred anywhere. For example, if I, or anyone I know, have never witnessed a miracle, a false negative concludes that miracles do not happen. A false positive, on the other hand, assumes that if a given type of event has occurred in our frame of reference, it has always occurred in a similar fashion in all other frames of reference. If I have experienced a miracle, then miracles have always happened in all reference frames. Both can be misleading.
The God concept is based on sundry assumptions. So is the Not-God concept. To say either of the previous statements is not true is to cling to the assumption that one’s sources of truth are correct and unquestionable. Some theorize that the God concept is an outcome, or effect, of insufficiencies left behind by the natural selection process. To some, spirituality is all in our heads, the result of certain neural portions of the brain that create the spiritual realm. Of course such psychological assessments are also all in our heads. Perhaps the need to explain away the God concept is also a residual insufficiency of natural selection!
One of the arguments for the nonexistence of God is that it is inconsistent for God to make laws, then to break them in order to intervene. Though this once gave me cause for thought, I now find it a bit humorous. Physicists today do not even know all the laws of our universe, let alone adjacent universes that may or may not intersect ours. And we pretend to understand their laws? How could we possibly know how two or more sets of laws interact to define what is “consistent” or “inconsistent” within the cosmos?
Assumptions affect and are affected by psychological filters. None of us has an “unfiltered” image of God or Not-God. If we think we do, we are probably living under yet another illusory assumption. Take God’s gender for example.
Many theists believe God is male. Some base their beliefs on scriptural texts that use male terminology. Others have simply inherited a male filter. There are scriptural texts that open the door to other possibilities. One such text says that God is a father to the fatherless (Psalm 68:5). What then is God to the motherless? What is God to the childless? What is God to the spouseless? What is God to the friendless? What is God to the lifeless?
I believe God is far beyond our limited assumptions. On one hand, She laughs with us in our uncertainties and, on the other hand, It empathizes with our struggles. I believe God presents Himself mercifully in various forms: I firmly assume that God is all things to all people!
– Sam Augsburger
Great post!
Love it Sam! Although I have not read the entire book yet, (Linda, if you are reading this, go ahead and “assume” that I will be taking the book with me when I come down to visit next time! JK) I have looked through it and you must know that I have specifically told your grocery store story about the Arab couple and the Native Americans, more than once, at work with my patients after making an ignorant and assuming comment! (Because all the Hispanics in Florida must be Mexicans and couldn’t possibly be from any other Spanish-speaking country, right?!?!) I have a co-worker who is from Iraq and she will lie about where she is from because of her last name! Why? Because people make assumptions about her last name and her when in reality it is as common as “Jones” or “Smith” in the United States! I have thought to myself many times that if you just take notice of what people “literally” say when they speak that the majority of what comes out of our mouths is not true or logical and basically an assumption. We are all guitly of it, I am sure I have made assumptions in this post already! I love the thought provoking material and can’t wait to read the book in its entirety!