I'm tired today. Tired in several ways. And on a less tired day, I will probably regret posting this...
If I am the type of Christian who believes that being a "true Christian" requires holding to precisely the right "yes" or "no" answers to a list of intellectual beliefs, I should probably at least once in my life stop and do some simple mathematics.
I should start by making a list of everything I think has a correct "yes or no" answer. I should start simply, by listing, say, There is one and only one God, and, This God was the God of Abraham, and Jesus was the literal Son of this God. I should work through this list as long as I can. I should think of the creeds I believe, and consider the points of doctrine I espouse on Sundays. I should do my best to make sure my points are as basic, simple and direct as possible. For example, instead of saying "A true Christian lives as Jesus lived," I should list all the yes/no points that this implies. Then I should try harder, to be as thorough as possible in all matters, concerning what I approve of and disapprove of; for example, Wearing a see-through bikini to a crowded beach is okay for a true Christian, or True Christians do not support the democratic party, and put all of them on my list. I should also be introspective and list everything I can think of that I've used to judge another person, perhaps a good friend, as being a true Christian or not; for example, A true Christian would never buy beer on a Sunday. Then, after I think I'm done, I should check my list. If I do this correctly, I will have a complete list of precisely what a person has to believe, in yes or no terms, to be a true Christian. I should check my list again and decide for each point what the proper answer is: yes or no. Then after being satisfied that my list is accurate and complete, I should count the number of items in the list. Then I should consider this:
# of items in list Approx simplified probability of a random person answering all items as I would
10 1 in 1,000
20 1 in 1,000,000
30 1 in 1,000,000,000
33 1 in 8,000,000,000 (Nobody else on earth. Just me.)
37 1 in 128,000,000,000 (Nobody else on earth. Ever. Just me.)
100 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (It is probably more likely that homo sapiens exist by pure chance.)
If I thought about this for awhile, I might begin to see that the points I picked weren't the ones I should have picked, because some answers guarantee others, and I might decide to rework my list. I might also decide that the mathematics are too simplistic and too brutal and don't give an accurate picture of things, because they don't account for a number of factors determining and affecting the distribution of answers given by various populations, and because each point doesn't necessarily carry the same likelihood of a yes/no answer as other points. True, these would affect the numbers significantly. But I might also decide that even so, the numbers are huge enough to make a few points worth considering. One, nobody else much shares in just exactly what I believe. Two, this is probably a good thing, because the odds are that my list isn't the "correct" list. Three, with numbers like these, "correct" and "mistaken" don't mean much of anything anyway. Four, if I do happen to know a bunch of people who "believe exactly what I believe," I probably need to ask myself if I should actually view this as comforting. And five, I should really just stop to consider that my system of belief is strictly and necessarily between myself and God, and let other people work out their own with God.
Who knows? On a good day, the whole exercise just might take me down a path whereupon I reconsider what being a Christian does, or does not, entail. Who knows? I might realize that I need to whittle my list down to only the more major line items. And you know, I might even decide that Christian faith has very little at all to do with a set of specific, intellectual beliefs.
0 comments:
Post a Comment