The Paradox of the Righteous Theologian

Garth Gilmour
Sep 9, 2018 · 3 min read

I’m in my forties now, and cannot remember a time in my adult life when some Christian denomination wasn’t in the news for egregious crimes against their community. When the story builds to a peak I often end up in debate with believers. The most popular defence I am given is “but what about the acts of righteous believer X” or “the writings of righteous theologian Y”? In this article I’d like to talk about the latter, although I believe my argument applies equally to the former.

Lets shift the discussion for a moment to athletics (the sport doesn’t matter). Suppose I declare that “Bob is a really bad coach”. I make the declaration because all the athletes trained by Bob display poor technique and have never won trophies. But then a friend of Bob says “what about Jane”? It turns out that Jane is considered flawless in her technique and has won many Olympic medals. So I am happy to admit we should at least re-evaluate Bob. Jane may be a ‘false positive’ who has succeeded despite her coach, but we owe Bob the benefit of the doubt.

Returning to religion can we make the same argument for a church or entire faith? Not if we evaluate religions by their own terms of reference. The Christian faith (amongst others) claims that they (or at least their church) are the once true avatar of an omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent supernatural power whose abilities are channeled into all who believe in him. If you are familiar with the gospels you can immediately bring to mind multiple examples where this claim is made.

Now it is generally considered unfair (although I don’t see why) to ask religious believers to perform miracles. But surely we can set the bar lower and demand that the overwhelming majority of believers (in a particular faith) display ethical and moral considerations far in advance of that in the general population?

Let’s say we had a Ghostbusters style apparatus that could detect and measure ‘goodness’ (admittedly a fuzzy term). Shouldn’t more lights come on and the device ping louder every time we entered a place of worship? It’s an interesting thought experiment to imagine this device being taken around different social institutions and the readings then compared. Honestly admitting the results you would expect will tell you a lot about your underlying beliefs, as opposed to the ones you pay lip service to…

We can even allow for false negatives. Counter arguments can be mounted that this is the best of all possible worlds, that free will requires the possibility of evil and even that there is some demonic adversary trying to frustrate the work of believers. But, to invert the common excuse, this only explains a few rotting apples, not the whole stinking barrel.

So, unlike our athletic example, I am not required to seek out and interview Jane, nor does the existence of Jane improve my opinion of Bob. In fact I believe the opposite is the case. If you say to me:

“Consider Pete. His high IQ, extensive education and years of study enable him to advance arguments that justify our continued existence.”

Then I say that you are no better than any other ‘ism’ from academia. It is possible for one Existentialist, Humanist, Socialist etc… to raise the standing of their field precisely because that field is a collection of propositions assembled by fallible mortal minds. But if (in the Christian example) the Holy Sprit is alive and well and at work in the local congregation why can’t the least capable believer be the most capable spokesman? Why is the set of positive exemplars so small? Why do I have to go to the local bookstore to find theological comfort?

Garth Gilmour

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Helping Software Developers develop software better. Coder for 30 years, in IT for 20 and teaching for the last 15. Also martial arts, philosophy and politics.

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