Sometimes, philosophy, theology, and rhetoric arguments remind me of conceptual physics. When in ninth grade, our school started the students with a novice physics course teaching bare-bones physics - enough to discover that: falling from high places will hurt; light occasionally behaves strangely; levers, pulleys, fulcrums, are magic devices capable of lifting gargantuan loads with a scarce a suggestion of effort (or, done poorly, can make it quite difficult to lift normal loads); and other trivial physics phenomena, . The trick to early physics is very clearly explained using a joke regarding physicists (a variation appeared in Big Bang Theory):
Milk production at a dairy farm was low, so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking for help from academia. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. Shortly thereafter the physicist returned to the farm, saying to the farmer "I have the solution, but it only works in the case of spherical cows in a vacuum."
Many concepts in physics are simply too advanced for introductory mathematics and learners. You receive an equation regarding gravity, but because of a need to simplify the calculations for simpler understanding and reproduction, you remove so many variables that the equation loses its comparison to reality. Sure, I can calculate how fast a ball will roll down a slope, barring friction, air resistance, changes in slope, temperature, with a perfectly round ball, and a drop that adds or subtracts no acceleration.
But physics gets so much more complicated when trying to adhere to real rules or attempting to match reality. I believe sometimes the same is true of philosophical discussions, rhetorical arguments, and theology. It's a semantic battle where we argue without contemplating the relevance of so many factors: media influence on us and the material; cultural differences between past authors or philosophers and now, and/or a distance factor; context of passages temporally or literarily; the oblique, complicated, indefinite dilemma of engaging with the works of mankind and possible error; our own bias or a historical bias and so on. The list really could go on for quite some time, as these topics are more like plasma than a sword to grasp and swing at our rhetorical foes.
Really, it's rather impressive how many different interpretations of theology have produced divisions within our own body of Christ. And Christianity isn't alone in its denominational divisiveness, and neither is theology. This, in and of itself, is not a problem. The searching itself is necessary and asking questions is one of the great boons of sentience. The problem arises when our belief systems harass or wound others, or the adherents of other opinions: when our beliefs dehumanize other individuals, or belittle their accomplishments or the fantastic truth of being created in the image of God (male and female). Whether you are a fundamentalist, calvinist, lutheran, catholic, eastern orthodox, baptist, nondenominational, quaker, agnostic, atheist, muslim, buddhist, jew, or just angsty, your belief system does not, and will never, grant you infallibility of character or knowledge.
So many times we misinterpret scripture, philosophical books, or simply things people say, and internalize those clumsy perceptions as axiomatic. With these fallacious perceptions we proceed to dehumanize women, those with different colors of skin, people based on their sexual tendencies, or even people based on their living locations.
I remember in american history class back in high school realizing something monstrous as we studied the civil war: both sides were praying to the same God for victory and moral justice. Each side was convinced in their morality and principles. But both sides prayed the same God would save them, delivering them from their foes, the believers on the other half of an imaginary line.
How could they not realize they were both so wrong? Or is that just my own bias shining through? Is that the only lens I can evaluate the world through, and how does my own lens obfuscate truth and detrimentally affect my outlook on people, places, philosophy, and the physics of belief?
But again and again I've been noticing how people pick out verses and wield them as rhetorical bludgeons of belief against their mighty foes and the obstacles of (their) truth. But how often are these "foes" and "obstacles" people, or are our brothers and sisters wounded in the "pursuit of theology and justice"? Real live, flesh-and-blood people for whom Christ paid the ultimate sacrifice?
What does it take to acquire intellectual humility, but still have the backbone for standing up for your beliefs?
Still, I believe it's not only silly, but detrimental to state our opinions and beliefs as objective truth, and attempt to brand them onto our fellows in the name of morality. We've discovered how far the ball will fly in a frictionless, vacuum without and resistances or temperature, but there are so many things unaccounted for. And you know, you may be correct - who knows? But without intellectual humility, compassion, love, and gentleness, the truth is a bludgeon, and a person backed into the corner of belief will fight or flee rather than believe.
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