Faith Unchosen (Good People Better Rise Up!)

Up until today, I haven't recommended the Andrew Sullivan v. Sam Harris blogalogue on religion and faith. Today that changes. An excerpt from today's effort from Andrew Sullivan:

You will ask: how do I know this was Jesus? Could it not be that it was a force beyond one, specific Jewish rabbi who lived two millennia ago and was executed by the Roman authorities? Yes, and no. I have lived with the voice of Jesus read to me, read by me, and spoken all around me my entire life - and I heard it that day. If I had been born before Jesus' birth, would I have realized this? Of course not. If I had been born in Thailand and raised a Buddhist, would I have interpreted this experience as a function of my Buddhist faith rather than Jesus? If I were a pilgrim right now in Iraq, would I attribute this epiphany to Allah? An honest answer has to be: almost certainly.
But I am a contingent human being in a contingent time and place and I heard Jesus. Do I believe that other religious traditions, even those that posit doctrines logically contrary to the doctrines of Jesus, have no access to divine truth? I don't. If God exists, then God will be larger and greater than our human categories or interpretations. I feel sure that all the great religions - and many minor ones - have been groping toward the same God. I don't need to tell you of the profound similarities in ethical and spiritual teaching among various faiths, as well as their differences. I believe what I specifically believe - but since the mystery of the divine is so much greater than our human understanding, I am not in the business of claiming exclusive truth, let alone condemning those with different views of the divine as heretics or infidels. We are all restless for the same God, for the intelligence and force greater than all of us, for that realm of being that the human mind senses but cannot achieve, longs for but cannot capture. But I've learned in that search that integral and indispensable to it is humility. And such humility requires relinquishing the impulse to force faith on others, to condemn those with different faiths, or to condescend to those who have sincerely concluded that there is no God at all. And when I read the Gospels recounting the sayings and actions of Jesus of Nazareth, I see a man so committed to that humility he was prepared to die under its weight.

If I had to summarize my own beliefs in one sentence, I'm not sure I could do much better than the one I highlighted above.

The discussion these two have been having has been both intense and profoundly meaningful. Harris believes in reason. Sullivan believes in something more. I, for one, don't see these two disagreeing on the facts so much as on principles. Harris believes in the unlimited power of human reason, whereas Sullivan sees limits to how far our own reason can take us. On that issue I clearly side with Sullivan, who said the following:

As the Pope said last year, I believe that God is truth and truth is, by definition, reasonable. Science cannot disprove true faith; because true faith rests on the truth; and science cannot be in ultimate conflict with the truth. So I am perfectly happy to believe in evolution, for example, as the most powerful theory yet devised explaining human history and pre-history. I have no fear of what science will tell us about the universe - since God is definitionally the Creator of such a universe; and the meaning of the universe cannot be in conflict with its Creator. I do not, in other words, see reason as somehow in conflict with faith - since both are reconciled by a Truth that may yet be beyond our understanding.

Far too often, atheists and non-believers get hung up on semantics. They project on all believers a belief in what I like to call a "Sunday School" god: a man with a beard who sits above the clouds, alternately playing the roles of puppet master and judge. And while no doubt there are some who believe that, there are many, many who do not. So what do I believe?

I believe that there is order to the universe. That there is a purpose. That we are all here for a reason, but that we are all also free to ignore that purpose and make our lives what we will. Those choices, however, have consequences, shaping our lives in a way those in the East would call karma. We are free to choose, but the choices matter.

That feeling that you feel when you stand atop a mountain, or look down over the edge of a vast canyon? That feeling that you get when a piece of music moves you to tears, or when spme written words take you to a place you have never been? That feeling that there is something more, something bigger, something that binds you and connects you not just to other people but to the universe itself? I believe that feeling is a small window to God, a window through which we see and know that there is something more. But as humans we are limited, able to understand only a small fraction of what we see as we look, and able to explain only a small fraction of what we understand as we look.

Want more? Andrew and Sam have more here.