Jersey Girl wrote:JAK,
Don't you think one can be a skeptical Theist? If not, why not?
Jersey Girl
Jersey Girl,
Indeed, one can be a skeptical theist.
There are
hundreds of theist positions. Education is the great threat to
theism as in a absolute.
Are the Southern Baptists “right,” or are Roman Catholics “right”?
Are United Methodists “right,” or are Islamic fundamentalists “right”?
The last one is a deliberate stretch, of course, There is little that they have in common. But the point is one of support for the view that there certainly can be “skeptical theists.”
We have friends who were Methodists and are now Unitarian Universalist.
That’s a considerable shift. They are clearly skeptical theists.
However, these
skeptical reviews move in a variety of directions. We find Christians converting to Islam. We also find Muslims converting to one (of the many Protestant denominations) or to Roman Catholicism.
Clearly, these people who change their views within some form of theism are
skeptical theists..
Then there are theists sufficiently skeptical that they become agnostics. That is, they do not subscribe to
any of the hardened theistic myths and simply recognize (intellectually) that they (that no one) really knows conclusively that one theism vs. another theism is correct.
Theism is inherently inconsistent. And even Roman Catholics (for example) do not agree on matters of doctrine. I have read that up to 90% of American Roman Catholic couples practice artificial birth control. They do not accept the doctrine of the official church that
all forms of artificial birth control are contrary to the
will of God. So, while they may remain Roman Catholic for public consumption, attend mass, and appear quite Catholic,
privately, they choose to control the size of their family. They may be theists, but they depart the scripted doctrine. Such Catholics are a threat to the
power and control of the RC Church.
A significant number of Roman Catholics reject the notion of papal inerrancy. I know one family which now attends the Church of the Brethren. That’s a far distance from the RCC position in doctrine. They are
skeptical theists as well.
So, why do they go to the Church of the Brethren? They met someone at work who went to that church. They became friends. They attended membership classes at the Church of the Brethren and
liked what they found including the coffee and donuts and social interaction. As a result they transferred their membership.
Were they skeptical of the Roman Catholic doctrine? They were. Are they skeptical of the positions of the Church of the Brethren? They are. But they are still theists. Their college kids are agnostics. And so the shift in perspective occurs generationally as well as vertically within an individual.
Sorry for the extended answer to your question. But there is no real short cut to the “why” without at least exploring the cultural change in perspective.
JAK