Monday, March 26, 2007

good theology

There's a lot of bad theology out there, both from traditional religions, and from new age belief. In my class, "What I Believe" I end the course by giving the participants several guidelines to evaluate their personal belief statements. The criteria have to do with whether the beliefs are internally consistent, and whether they support the particpant's core values. But in general there are two criteria that make a set of beliefs good or bad.

The first factor is truth. Our beliefs, which are our description of reality, should, ideally, describe reality the way it actually is. If there actually is a God a theistic theology is better than an atheistic theology, because it's closer to the truth. Internal consistency helps with this factor by at least weeding out beliefs that can't be true.

The truth factor, however, is not actually the most important factor in describing good and bad theology. To start with, there's the problem with actually knowing the turth. Knowing anything is philosophically difficult, but especially when dealing with knowledge of something as fuzzy as metaphysics. And besides, it's easy enough to observe that people with very diverse beliefs or even contradictory beliefs, like theists and atheists can have equally healthy spiritual lives.

So that's the second and much more importat criteria for judging whether a belief system is good or bad, is it spiritually healthy.? It's a practical question. Do your beliefs actually work? Do they support your values? Do you beliefs give you a sense of purpose and meaning? Is there a reason implied in your beliefs for you to be alive? Can you face the inevitable sadness of life with resiliance and peace?

I want my beliefs to be an accurate description of reality. But right belief is much less important than healthy spirituality.

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