From: mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Michael Siemon's "dealt with in themselves"  (was: Faith)
Summary: levels of explanation
Date: 5 Oct 92 02:16:28 GMT
Organization: AT&T

In article <1afiheINN3cb@cs.utexas.edu>, turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
asks:

> In article <1992Sep30.152159.12918@cbnewsm.cb.att.com> mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon) writes:

> > I have instead a certain number of experiences, "interior" to myself
> > or in my relations with other people or the world which ARE adequately
> > described by traditional religious language [and obviously my upbring-
> > ing both familiarized me with that language and may "shape" the very
> > possibility of my having the experiences, or being predisposed to a
> > religious interpretation of them] and which, even when accessible to
> > non-religious investigation (religion is a rich area for sociological
> > and psychological study) are simply not dealt with in themselves by
> > these disciplines, however interesting and applicable that research
> > may be.

> I find this passage so interesting that I want to pursue it a
> bit, even at the risk of becoming once again embroigled in the
> jungle. 

I will try to avoid imbroglio, while still attempting an answer :-)

> This raises several questions.  What does it mean for an
> interpretation to deal with an experience "in itself"?  Why is
> this important?  When do (or should) we seek an interpretation
> that deals with an experience "in itself"?  And how should we
> treat such interpretations?  (In these regards, it might be
> interesting to compare religious experience with other interior
> experiences, such as dreams.)

I did not mean my comments to open the floodgates of indeterminacy.
Rather, my point is a fairly pedestrian one -- concering "levels"
of explanation.

Biologists doing evolutionary studies are sometimes challenged by
critcs on the basis of the laws of thermodynamics. Most challenges
by "creationists" are from ignorance, but there was recently on
talk.origins someone with apparently honest backgound in chemical
engineering who thought to use the details of his own expertise
to raise questions about evolution (he disappeared before ever he
spoke to any evolutionary issues, I should note).  The problem in
this case is that evolution MUST assume chemical thermodynamics,
but for the most part that study is irrelevant to the questions we
want answers to.  The chemical activity of cells is conducted in a
context where chemical reactions and their phyical preconditions are
very much relevant -- but what *evolution* deals with merely happens
in the CONTEXT of ordinary chemistry, and is not affected one way
or another by the constraints of chemistry.  Evolution operates
(with full granting of environmental constraint to the physics and
chemistry that MUST underly it) on a DIFFERENT LEVEL of explanation
from that involved in cellular chemistry.  Thermodynamic constraints
*do* limit the possibilities in an evolutionary explanation -- but
as a general rule they are merely the background and need not be an
explicitly cited part of any evolutionary explanation.

Similarly, the social and psychological background is a mandatory
part of ANY discussion of human religion.  It is (I hope) obvious
that people pick up religious metaphor/explanation along with the 
language they learn -- and from the same sources.  Psychological
and sociological explanations ARE (I think) relevant here.  Most
people (especially in traditional societies where there are no
alternatives presented to the "standard" religious framework) just
adopt what they have learned as conventional expression of some
conventionally defined situations.  In a "modern" environment, they
may be made aware that such expressions are not the only ones that
might be generated.  I will defer, at this point, from dealing with
the issues that are raised by such considerations.

To revert to Russell's question -- the matters that concern me as a
believing Christian *do* have a dimension that psycho-social kinds
of explanation apply to.  Like many others in this country, I have
been "formed" by an exposure to the culture that preceded me -- and
this has LOTS of Christian referents.  Just as I am fluent in the
idiom of my generation -- involving resistance to the VietNam War,
for example -- I am also fluent in the idiom of salvation and grace
that is hauled out in sermons, not only in my own "variety" of
Christianity but in many others with a complex historical relation
to my own.

But psychology and sociology explain either too much or too little.
Vast numbers of people have had the "same" exposure (as far as this
could be measured, sociologically) as I have without their being in
any way inclined to the position I hold.  Most of my contemporaries
have these "same" experiences.  Most of them, I think, are NOT now
Christians in the same sense I am one.  My contemporaries will ALL
have some similar *reaction* as I do to terms of American religious
discusssion --  but there is no predicting from that as to what the
position they adopt from this reaction will be.

I am more than willing to grant that social and psychological forces
in an American context will generate in each age cohort a new group
that *will* use "Christian" language to define itself.  Some of what
is going on in that is in fact important to my theological self-under-
standing.

When I say that this understanding misses the phenomena of interest,
I am mostly saying that the social/psychological "forces" involved
apply to my non-Christian (or only nominally Christian) contemporaries
just as much as to me.  So they don't reach to the matter in dispute.
Russell has in the past used a metaphor from a friend, about "god bits"
that are turned on or not, and that makes all the difference.  One is
not pinned down about the model that might explain this "god bit" by
noting that it is a non-explanation. Rather, the whole "god bit" thing
is nothing but a statement that current psycho/social explanation does
NOT deal with the issue of believers versus non-believers.

Christian theology has a category of "grace" -- and a scriptural locus
of concern with the issue this raises -- which (attempts, in its own
realm of discussion) deals with the problem.

What strikes me, reading Russell's question, is that "generic" question
about the theological explanations, is that the context of the questions
simply does not address the issues as they present themselves (and I
most especially mean the issues that *Christians* find troubling in our
dealing with our faith).  I firmly believe that any understanding of
Christian faith has to procede *within* the context of what people, as
human beings, DO -- and this is explicated by psychology and sociology.
But nothing about faith/trust in God or the applicability of Christian
(or *other* theological) categories is addressed at this level of our
explanations of reality.

Just as evolutionary biology assumes thermodynamics (along with all
the other relevant physics), so I assume that a rational theology must
assume everything that may be inferred about belief and explanation
from a believer's perspecitve from its human (and therefore social
and psychological) foundations.  But this does not distinguish me and
those of my contemporaries who, exposed to the same social and psycho-
logical context, have NOT become believers.  If Russell thinks there is
a reasonable theory of his "god bit" he is welcome to post it -- but
in default of that, I will simply observe that the phenomena at issue
are NOT part of any secular theory I have ever encountered.
 
> (PS to Micthael:  May we infer from your address that you work for
> Unix Systems Laboratories?  What do you do for them?)

I helped USL define and implement the adminstrative software that is
being offered with the new SVR4.2 system.  I am happy about some of
this, and rather embarrassed about other parts of it.  Much of what
we intended is only marginally present in the product; but there is
still enough there that I would urge all of you to take a look at the
result, and (taking our view, that we needed to reach the NON-UNIX
user) see if what we did meets a reasonable goal.  It is worth a note
that I was always, in the demos of our prototype, pointing out that
one might enter the "advanced adminstration option" -- i.e., fire up
an xterm and do what one knows possible independently of the features
we worked ourselves to death to provide to the non cognoscenti.
-- 
Michael L. Siemon		   "Oh, stand, stand at the window,
					As the tears scald and start;
mls@usl.com			   You shall love your crooked neighbor
standard disclaimer			With your crooked heart."