Regarding Tim's 09/17/03 Blast of Spong. Obviously you are not ready for a ride beyond Theism....for you still believe, by your comments, that God can be 'apprehended' by Theism. The Bishop is only seeking a vision beyond Theistic understanding, which ultimatley involves how we look at all religion, and not just Christianity. Even the best "Theisms" CANNOT contain God...why does that upset you, Tim? PS. Spong pointed out in one of his books (A New Christianity, I think,)that after Moses & the Children of Israel crossed the Red Sea---and then the sea SWALLOWED up the Eqyptians---What kind of a God is that, that Egyptians could worship (?) or maybe Egyptians are just scum according to God.

S.R. Pauciello,

First, thank you for your thoughtful comments. In specific:

Obviously you are not ready for a ride beyond Theism...

"Beyond?" My friend, I've looked at and seriously considered most the major god-related -isms you'd care to name. Whether pantheism is "beyond" theism or vise-versa is simply a way of stating your preferences.

I don't deny you whatever you'd like to believe, but I can't help but notice that a God with sentience seems greater than one who lacks it -- if it is Spong's pantheism to which you allude. Should we desire to be "like God" by becoming impersonal, like rocks and water?

God kills everyone once. He is no more moral or immoral if it happens at 65 of natural symptoms or 22 in the heat of battle, or 12 by accident. Spong's need to find an impersonal God comes out of the his incorrect solution to the problem of evil -- he reasons that if God is sentient (like us) and does things Spong thinks are immoral, then God can't be moral. So we ditch sentience instead in order to "preserve" belief in 'God' (though we're not preserving anything, since we're engaged in the idolatry by worshiping a God of our own creation).

Of course, a simpler solution is that Spong is simply wrong about what's moral or immoral for God to do. Again, explain: Why would God be moral if I died of old age at 88, but immoral if he took my life by another means? If killing an Egyptian implied God thought they were scum, then what about every other single human being who will die?

Or is it just too scary to ponder the possibility that Spong's key assumption might be in error?

Answer this point, please.

The Bishop is only seeking a vision beyond Theistic understanding, which ultimatley involves how we look at all religion, and not just Christianity.

My friend, there are only so many -isms to choose from. The major ones are theism, deism, atheism, agnosticism (in the original sense), polytheism, pantheism, and dualism. Feel free to pick one. I've pondered them all at considerable depth. If you want to see how beliefs like pantheism and dualism work out, feel free to look at how India turned out after having adopted them for a couple thousand years.

Spong isn't going anywhere that millions of people haven't gone before. He's just another guy who's angry at theism and trying to destroy it. There's nothing particularly esoteric about such.

Spong likes to characterise his opponents as ignorant of other religions, but in fact, it's actually the very the trait he exploits in his audience. Learning more about other religions will help one see that what Spong is saying is nothing new at all, and will better show that the consequences of such beliefs are when fully fleshed-out and embraced.

An "ad homen" argument is where you attack your oponent's character rather than his logic or evidence. The primary reason to use such an argument is as a fallback device when your argument is weak or doesn't make sense.

Spong characterises his opponents as "ignorant" as a clever device to distract the reader from the inherant logical weaknesses in his own arguments, which tend to be exclusively based on emotional appeals. And, following his example, you also characterise me as spiritually immature, "not ready" to consider your argument.

Yet, to the contrary, I've spent years searching before settling on Christianity; I've seen it all before. And I've repeatedly answered your and Spong's contention that if the theistic God kills, he must be morally lacking. Yet you ignore this and resort instead to ad homen arguments and repeating the assumption again, as if that will somehow refute my response to it.

Don't you realize you're being trained in sloppy reasoning? That the whole personal argument thing is just a distraction to keep you from considering the the core problem logically?

Further, notice that your reaction to the death of the Egyptians in question is an emotional one: that action was wrong because you feel it must be.

There's nothing wrong with having emotions, but they're not meant to substitute for thinking. We have to "look under" our emotions, to find out what assumptions they're based on. In this case, perhaps you feel death is a tragedy because there can be no existence afterwards. Otherwise, if life is just a pool, and God is just a lifeguard, what makes him so wrong for calling you out of the pool?

We cannot first assume theism is wrong by assuming there is no afterlife, then use this assumption to show how wrong theism is again. That's a logical fallacy called "circular reasoning". Everything is simple to prove once we assume it. But we're just rowing in circles, repeating our assumptions back to ourselves as though they were discoveries.

you still believe, by your comments, that God can be 'apprehended' by Theism... Even the best "Theisms" CANNOT contain God

Again, as mundane and non-revolutionary as this might sound, all descriptions of God basicly boil down to one of a few of the aforementioned -isms. None of them, including theism, claim to "contain" God, they just hypothesize a few attributes about God.

A few of them are self-refuting, such as those which claim God is beyond our knowing. (As C.S. Lewis pointed out: "To say we can know nothing of God is to say we already know quite a lot about God.") Down this path lies rejection of rational thought itself.

Spong likes this straw man argument: Keep the person protesting theism, without letting them ask whether what they're getting into instead has some of the same weaknesses or characteristics.

Anyway, that's enough for the moment. I'd be glad to discuss this topic more on the blog or via e-mail. Fond regards to you, and I wish you the best in your journey, regardless of where it takes you.

I don't get Spong. Theism is belief in God (or in the gods). The adjective -- theistic -- is of or about belief in God (or the gods). So, any belief in God (or the gods) is a theistic belief. A non-theistic God (or gods)? Isn't that a bit like a gaseous solid, or a colorless color? I don't get it.

Spong's beliefs are highly irrational and illogical. You're clearly noticing that. But if that seems odd, it's because you're confused about his goals.

Spong is not, I believe, attempting to come up with some rational or logical statement of belief. Indeed, that's highly unlikely, as his statements are fraught with logical contradictions and fallacies, and he seems utterly ignorant of more than half the theological discussion. (Which is hilarious, since that's the charge he so often levels against anyone who dares disagree with his irrational pronouncements.)

Instead, it seems Spong is what Christians call a "wolf in sheep's clothing". He denies existence in the theistic God -- so the respectable thing to do would be to simply admit one's atheism, pantheism, or whatever.

But if one's strategy is to destroy or change a certain religion that one hates -- and make no bones about it, listen to the way Spong talks about scripture and the God depicted within, and you'll see his deep, seething hatred for that -- the best way to do that, it seems, is to go undercover.

It's a good position to be in: When people see and trust a "bishop" who claims to know deep, deep theological truths they are more swayed by that than an atheist. Also, you can try to redefine the religion, to "take it away from" those people you hate so much.

Hence the term: "Wolf." Predator-of-sheep. The best eating is always inside the pen, no? Most atheists are too intellectually honest to do such a thing, however they might feel about Christianity. Spong is another matter entirely.

Well, it seems contradictory that you can believe in a "non-theistic god." But in the postmodern world, such self-contradictions are commonplace.

After all, the very word for god is "theos." So God is by definition theistic. You can have pantheism, atheism, etc., but not a non-theistic god.

I think Francis Schaeffer's point that Aristotle didn't invent Aristotelian logic, but discovered it, enters in here. "If A, then not non-A," the contention that something cannot be true and not true in the same sense.

This is just the way we think, not something Aristotle thought up. He discovered it and defined it. It wasn't some passing western way of thinking.

Postmodernists don't see any problem with two or more contradictory things being "true" at the same time. Somehow, for them, you could have a "non-theistic" God. While they're at deconstructing everything else, they think they can reinvent truth.

A Dialectic on Spiritualism:

Six basic theories make the wheel that defines what kind of God exists:

Theism - God is transcendant rather than immanent, and intervenes in the universe; God created the universe and guides the universe.

Deism - God is transcendant rather than immanent, and does not intervene in the universe; God created the universe but does not guide the universe.

Pantheism - God is immanent rather than transcendant, and does intervene in the universe; God did not create the universe because God has always been the universe.

Pandeism - God is immanent rather than transcendant, and does not intervene in the universe; God created the universe from itself (the universe is all of God) but does not guide the universe .

Panentheism - God is both transcendant and immanent, and intervenes in the universe; God created the universe from itself (the universe is part of, but not all of, God) and guides the universe.

Panendeism - God is both transcendant and immanent, and does not intervene in the universe; God created the universe from itself (the universe is part of, but not all of, God) but does not guide the universe.

Note that atheism, in denying God exists, speaks to the character of the universe itself as a universe without God - although some atheists would not exclude positions such as deism, pantheism or pandeism as each excludes the theistic God.

Note that agnosticism is no theory of God at all, but rather of human knowledge about God.

Polytheism or polydeism effectively denies the existence of God by claiming that the power of God is divided among different beings, none of which is holds a portion sufficient to wrest such power from the others; such may follow however from a single God who has chosen to divide his power in this way.