Subjectivity and Objectivity

This post came in response to a comment, and the whole response is not here. I hope it is worth your read:

The words subjective and objective carry with them a lot of meaning. We can define the term subjective as “something that someone else experiences that I don’t” or “something that someone else experiences that I can’t” or even “something that is not real”. The last one, on the issue of God is a circular argument, which says “God is not real, so what you experience is not real, therefore there is no God.” At least in theory, God could still exist if people drew untrue conclusions from experiences and then attributed them falsely to Him. We will dismiss that circular definition. There is a considerable difference between the other two definitions. If we say that a subjective experience is something that “I don’t experience”, we could broaden that definition to events, such as going to Morocco. This is a hard-line view of subjectivity. To condemn a person’s belief that Morocco actually exists, despite the fact that one has not been there and only relies on another’s word, would be incorrect. As for the other definition, that subjectivity is due to the fact that “I can’t experience” it, I will hereafter make the case that the method that I am suggesting, the “experiment” in these posts, is in fact objective, and that it is something that everyone can experience. Indeed, I hope it is something that we all experience. Therefore, according to the last definition, it is objective. But let’s first address some of the issues of objectivity.

All believers in God argue that the Deity they revere is powerful enough to make Himself known in an impacting, objective way; there is no God too weak to manifest Himself with remarkable objectivity. So if God does exist, He has the power to make Himself known to the entire world. However, this leaves believers with a difficult question to answer: If God exists, why doesn’t He more regularly use public, objective results? Those who do not believe in God may interpret this as proof that God doesn’t exist-- He does not manifest Himself because He does not exist. But another approach would be to explore why God, if He does exist, might use personal, and thereby often called “subjective”, experiences to reveal Himself; in the terms of this experiment, it is to explore why He might give us an objective method with subjective results.

So, if God could manifest Himself unto all in an objective way, why hasn’t He? For one, having a piece of evidence that one can hold in the hand with a proof that God exists (assuming that one could have such proof) would make believing in God an issue akin to believing that the earth orbits the sun, using machines and calculations to assert our claim. We know the earth orbits the sun, and believing otherwise would be foolish, and with that comes no real growth other than another fact logged away. I don’t presume to know the mind of God; but I think His non-use of objectivity may have to do with the fact that believing and having faith are, for whatever His reasons, things that He wishes we develop. There must be something of worth that comes to the individual cultivating a belief in God that is important to Him.

The power in the experiment of belief is that it is possible for every individual and that it teaches individually—by a tutor, as it were. A tutor, in this case God, will stay at our pace as we learn, giving us what we are able to take, when we are able to take it.

Take the example of God being concerned about us behaving ethically. If we believe God is just and He is concerned that we are ethical (i.e. righteous, loving, selfless, diligent, or how ever defined), He will judge our level of ethics based on what we know, just as children are punished to levels of severity according to their incremental knowledge of right and wrong. The experiment of belief is intended to allow us to know a little bit at a time about God, His existence, and what He would like us to become. If we knew, objectively, in one shebang all of that information, we would be held responsible for behaving perfectly ethically in thought, word, and deed, for we would know without a doubt that God does exist and that such-and-such is what He expects of us.

But instead, if He allows us to know and to learn incrementally, as this experiment of belief provides, He can judge us according to what we have received up to that point. Because He is just, He would also require that we put forth effort to seek more knowledge, for otherwise we would be ignoring opportunities for learning. While God is merciful towards those with incomplete understandings of His will (which surely includes all of us, to some degree or another), at the same time, willful ignorance of what God hopes of us and of His existence will not be as protective from God’s judgment. I say this because I know of people who chose not to try this “experiment”, not because they think it won’t work, but because they don’t want the responsibility of discovering that God expects them to be more ethical or “righteous” in the terms that they see some believers define. Since all are entitled to their belief, we, as humans, are expected to allow all men to live and pay homage whatsoever they choose, may it be God, various gods, science, money, sports, or nothing at all. However, I return to my original point: if God were to manifest himself objectively, there may be many, who perhaps would not have developed the kind of ethical living (however God may define it) to correctly live as He would instruct.

That is why the “experiment” that I am outlining is intrinsically sound: if God exists and wanted to make Himself known to the masses in an objective way, He could. If God exists and does not want to make Himself known in a great objective way because there is something about personal experience that is important to Him, He will confirm such to an individual. The experiment itself is objective: you can try it. However, if we are looking for results of the experiment to be measurable and quantifiable, we may find that the results lead to something that cannot be quantified. Such it is with God: He stands immeasurable, incalculable, and unquantifiable, for our intents and purposes. Only personal experience can measure the immeasurable. And if we make the claim that these personal experiences are, as a group, completely subjective, we don’t change the claim that personal experiences are the means by which the individual can know about God according to Him.

A common reply would be, “That is all too convenient. It’s too convenient just to say, ‘God cannot be objectively measured,’ because then there is no proof or denial.” If one’s purpose for believing in God was merely to rationalize His existence, then yes, this would be an easy claim. But I assure you that believers, whose goal is to know God and search for Him, are saying, “This is all too inconvenient. It would be so much simpler if God would just make Himself manifest to everyone.” Believers are not just looking for a scapegoat for their personal experience with the Divine. The inward searching for God is a process for those who believe, requiring dedication to that experiment of belief. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the more time we spend experimenting, the more likely we are to produce confident results. That commitment is not convenient.

I recognize that the goal for some is to refute the belief systems of those who believe in God. One cannot refute them by merely dismissing their experiences because they are not experienced by another, especially when I am suggesting that there is a way that all can believe. Though not a perfect analogy, can you say to a man who loves his son, “You do not love your son,” merely because you do not yourself experience it? No, and if he did love his son, what would be the units of measurement? Again, this has a level of ineffability, but that doesn’t mean that because he cannot quantify it, it is not so, or because it’s anecdotal, it isn’t reliable. We are left to either believe or dismiss his experiences on our own rationale—or, and this is my whole point, perhaps our own experiences of giving and receiving love would help us to understand, identify with, and believe the man, despite our lack of having the exact same experience.

These thoughts are in no way refuting the importance of objectivity. Much of our advancement as a species has come through measurable, more universally accepted objective results. As far as social policy, fiscal progress, science, engineering, business and many other applications in life, the most reasonable method of finding knowledge is all objective, quantitative and qualitative. Is this to say that God can’t help us on these issues? Of course He can, and I believe He has. But since there are things that are both important and unquantifiable, the “experiment” of belief becomes the logical standpoint. Besides, all objective results, including the whole of science, get to inexplicable or subjective assumptions when you boil it down.

I give you an example: why does a computer work? Because we have engineered transistors from semiconductive material to process logical operations. Why do these semiconductors allow us to operate? Because as you apply voltage to adjacent semiconductors with different conductivities, electrons’ behavior (electric current) will change dramatically. Why will the behavior change dramatically? Because we’ve observed these changes in the past. But why does the behavior change? Well, it’s in part due to the fact that sometimes an electron acts as a particle and sometimes it acts as a wave. Why is that? We don’t know. We base our calculations of electrons on these assumptions, that it has mass and also can act as a wave, but these are our best guess as to what’s going on with an electron. We have mathematical models that help us understand the behavior, but our mathematical models cannot tell us the “essence” of quantum mechanics yet or exactly what it is. As Sir Arthur Eddington said, “Something unknown is doing we don’t know what.” Down at the very bottom of all scientific assumptions we reach a point we have to accept subjectivity, because we have nothing objective. We just have to say “We don’t know what an electron really is. We will assume such and such, because our experiences have led us to believe that.” We have no real objective data; we just have to make the best use of things we’ve experienced and keep searching for more understanding. Yet, although we cannot completely quantify, or even explain, what the essence of an electron is, we can use electrons in powerful ways because we have experimented and observed how they act. Similarly, though we may not be able to quantify God or how He reveals Himself to us, we can learn in powerful ways by experimenting, observing, and experiencing how He acts in our lives.

That lengthy exposition said, there is no room in personal experience to not be open-minded and tolerant of other belief-systems. If God does exist and does value those results of personal experience, it should be respected on all levels. Thank you for your thoughtful response, as one who values science and empiricism and recognizes the intrinsic scientific difficulty with subjectivity. I’m sorry that the analogy doesn’t hold on all levels; alas, it is only an analogy.

There will be many posts in the future about these questions, for as a believer, I have had to come to terms with many difficult questions regarding believing in God. As I had to seriously ask myself these things, I hope that my blog will evoke some thoughts as well in the readership, and, if nothing more, the acceptance of people with belief systems in God as being a viable solution for finding meaning in this life.

The Question of God: Theism, Agnosticism, and Atheism

I read some recent news blogs and opinion articles that present atheism as a trophy for the educated and enlightened. Some claimed “I have never met an educated believer. Has anyone ever met an educated believer?” And, in response to educated believers, “I think falling back on superstitions is a lousy way to give meaning to the world. I think ‘life has no meaning except the meaning that I give it’ is a perfectly acceptable answer.”

For the former I say this: meet me. To the latter: read on.

I offer the following thoughts as a response to those who have a different belief system than my own, asking that they consider my belief system as viable. I firmly believe that everyone makes their best judgments on these matters, given their experiences this far in their lives. I don't feel superior for having had different experiences. Having said that:

I believe in God, Lord over the whole Universe. And I know that He lives.

At this point, persons whose experiences and knowledge have led them to believe otherwise may feel that they are resisting, as Marx so called it, the “opium of the people”, and may immediately disregard further comments saying, “Ah, you can’t believe him; he is obviously flawed mentally, clinging to superstition.” It is this viewpoint that I want to address. I acknowledge that there are many apologetics to religion in general and abundant commentary on the matter. I offer this exploration as from one educated person to another, and I invite those who feel agnosticism is a solution to the question of religion to consider these thoughts.

“How do you know that God exists?” is a perfectly reasonable question, which I think should be asked by skeptics. I claim something greater than “I believe”. Even the wateriest agnostics can mumble these “I believe” words, but I claim more. I claim I know. To know something requires a source of knowledge. The scientific method, which I have used considerably, can never prove something absolutely true. It can test our hypotheses. If the hypothesis is true, it is a possible explanation, but there's no guarantee that it is the one true explanation. Alas, the scientific method can only show things are not true by eliminating poor hypotheses. And as the novice philosopher will note, you cannot prove something does not exist by showing that it is not a specific set of things. So the scientific method, as revered as it is by me, cannot be a source of finding truth. It can get us closer and closer to truth by proving things false, but it cannot get us to an absolute truth.

“Well, there is no truth. All truth is relative,” and “Science points towards the fact that God doesn’t exist,” are two common responses. The statements “there is no truth” and “all truth is relative” are absolute statements, and are therefore claiming absolute truth. Such an inherently contradictory statement would be worth re-examining and dissecting, with its epistemological and ontological implications, for those students of that thought tradition. As for the second statement, I feel that these people give science more credit than it deserves. As much as I am in awe of science, there is no experiment, no observation, no methodology, and no empirical data that can prove or deny the existence of Deity. After having used science for much of my life, I find no method or procedure that even comes close to addressing the magnitude and scope of God that can confine God into a quantifiable laboratory experiment. It could be that people that make such claim are trying to refute, perhaps, a particular individual's viewpoint as to what God is. If, for example, they believed that God was manifested in a geocentric universe, then yes, science has proved that notion of God wrong. But we must all readily acknowledge that trying to prove God through science using fallible human opinions to define His attributes is merely proving that these fallible people were wrong. There is nothing in science, in all the reading and research I have done, that even comes close to refuting the God I know—in fact, science only builds on that belief and enriches it. So we return to the question: how do I know?

The powerful scientific method, though it cannot prove us whether things are true, is not without useful analogy for understanding this question. How do I know that God exists? How do we know that nebulae exist? We have built telescopes that allow us to penetrate further into that largely unknown sky. How do we know that bacteria exist? We have built microscopes to penetrate further into that largely unknown microscopic world. Can we study the stars with a microscope? Obviously not. And only a fool would attempt to study bacteria with a telescope. It is very clear to all educated people that we need the appropriate tool for study. In matters of religion there is a tool by which we can know spiritual things.

There is a tool for us to “see.” This tool is belief. A wise man, a man who claimed to have communed with God, and as such would know how to study God, taught, “I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.” Of all the people who have ever claimed to know that God exists, all have believed before they knew. It follows that the only tool by which we can know if God exists is, in fact, belief: the tool that He has consistently asked that we use to start our journey.

This is where people who believe in God have the advantage over those who staunchly proclaim that God can’t exist. The former learned of God, slowly and surely, by using the only tool available for such knowledge. The latter has never tried the tool, or put it to marginal, half-hearted, or sloppy use. We know that scientists spend much time looking for evidence with their tools, and that some may spend a lifetime getting closer and closer, never actually reaching their hypothesis. But do the scientists give up? No, they keep using the tool. So it is with God. The more effort we put into using the tool, the only tool given to know Him, the more, however incrementally slowly, we will begin to know.

I recognize that there are many, very many believers who are stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty and ignorance in the world. I recognize that there are many who make claims about God, seeming to be fanatical, outlandish, or superstitious. I cannot defend all people’s claims who believe in God. But I can defend the only tool they have. As there are correct ways and incorrect ways of using a scientific tool, there will likewise be many differing results for attempting to use the tool of belief in God. I cannot defend all their results. Sometimes abuse of an incorrectly-used tool trumps reality. I readily acknowledge that. But, nevertheless, no matter how these people have focused their belief, their tool, they still can experience and know something that a self-proclaimed atheist cannot know: God. Often, even an incorrect use of the tool yields more results than no use at all. The more time we spend using the tool, the more likely we will be able to understand it.

I defer to a man of God, who explained a conversation he had with a man who felt no need to use the tool of belief.

I sat on a plane next to a professed atheist who pressed his disbelief in God so urgently that I bore my testimony to him. “You are wrong,” I said, “there is a God. I know He lives!”

He protested, “You don’t know. Nobody knows that! You can’t know it!” When I would not yield, the atheist, who was an attorney, asked perhaps the ultimate question on the subject of testimony. “All right,” he said in a sneering, condescending way, “you say you know. Tell me how you know.”

When I attempted to answer, even though I held advanced academic degrees, I was helpless to communicate…When I used the words Spirit and witness, the atheist responded, “I don’t know what you are talking about.” The words prayer, discernment, and faith, were equally meaningless to him. “You see,” he said, “you don’t really know. If you did, you would be able to tell me how you know.”

I felt, perhaps, that I had borne my testimony to him unwisely and was at a loss as to what to do. Then… an idea came into my mind and I said to the atheist, “Let me ask if you know what salt tastes like.”

“Of course I do,” was his reply.

“When did you taste salt last?”

“I just had dinner on the plane.”

“You just think you know what salt tastes like,” I said.

He insisted, “I know what salt tastes like as well as I know anything.”

“If I gave you a cup of salt and a cup of sugar and let you taste them both, could you tell the salt from the sugar?”

“Now you are getting juvenile,” was his reply. “Of course I could tell the difference. I know what salt tastes like. It is an everyday experience—I know it as well as I know anything.”

“Then,” I said, “assuming that I have never tasted salt, explain to me just what it tastes like.”

After some thought, he ventured, “Well-I-uh, it is not sweet and it is not sour.”

“You’ve told me what it isn’t, not what it is.”

After several attempts, of course, he could not do it. He could not convey, in words alone, so ordinary an experience as tasting salt. I bore testimony to him once again and said, “I know there is a God. You ridiculed that testimony and said that if I did know, I would be able to tell you exactly how I know. My friend, spiritually speaking, I have tasted salt. I am no more able to convey to you in words how this knowledge has come than you are to tell me what salt tastes like. But I say to you again, there is a God! He does live! And just because you don’t know, don’t try to tell me that I don’t know, for I do!”

My experience with God is akin to that. Just in the past week I was asked to explain what that salt tasted like. I tried and failed. I have tasted that salt, but I had no way of telling them what it is that I experience when I experience God. I have studied psychology in great depth searching for anything that can resemble this experience. There are plenty of theories about the psychology of religion, even more philosophy on the matter, and none of them capture what I have “tasted”. There have been many theories, by people who have used the tool and by those who haven’t. What I have tasted is beyond the scope of mere science, in all of its powerful forms. I will continue to search for the plentiful meaning in life, given to me through science and, even more uniquely, by believing.