Thursday, January 03, 2008

Mere Christianity - More on the Belief Graph

Now, if we see the scope of human belief as a 2-dimensional graph,
this opens up a lot of possibilities. Is it possible for adherents of
the same faith to fall in slightly different places on the graph? Are
any points here more or less right than any other?

I think it is clear that different adherents of the same faith could
fall in different places on the graph. An example that comes to mind
might be the the difference between Christians who believe in saints
and those who don't. Those who believe in Saints would see God as
more involved in the world than those who don't recognize any
involvement after Christ's ascension.

Now, does that mean that one group is right, and another is wrong?
For the saints example, I would expect the difference in beliefs to
center around different opinions about the credibility of the saint -
and opinions are not provable at the end of the day. Without proof,
both arguments must be allowed to stand as reasonable.

Now, if we can see how within a religion people can legitimately sit
on different places in the graph based on different opinions, then
why cannot different religions also legitimately sit on the graph as
different opinions or metaphors for the same thing? If we make a
reasonable supposition that different religions could overlap on such
a graph, then wouldn't the difference between the religions
fundamentally be an issue of metaphor choice?

So, I think it seems reasonable to suggest that there is a 'field of
beliefs' that different people can reasonably and legitimately hold,
based on their opinions about how legitimate different manifestations
of divine power appear to them, and the metaphor that they best
choose to articulate those perceptions.