Edward Correia

The idea that we continue to exist in some form after death is an ancient one, perhaps predating our own species. Neanderthal man practiced burial rites suggesting a belief that the dead would need food and tools. At some point, the afterlife became a place for rewarding those who had lived a worthy life and punishing those who did not. The early Greeks reserved eternal bliss for a few. Most souls existed in a bleak underworld ruled by Hades. Recall Achilles telling Odysseus, who visited him in the underworld, that he would rather be a peasant on earth than a king in the underworld. Dante did as much as anyone to form our conventional image of life after death. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, there are three principal realms of existence, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.

Even this three part division of the afterlife is simpler than the one conceived by the Catholic Church. To these three dimensions, unofficial Catholic doctrine added a mysterious place called limbo where innocent souls who had not satisfied certain ritualistic requirements resided forever. Limbo was conceived as a place where the dead did not have the joy of being close to God but were not punished either. There was great dissatisfaction with the idea that the innocent could be stuck in limbo for eternity. Limbo for Infants who died shortly after childbirth but before christening seemed to many to be an obvious injustice. According to Catholic doctrine, at least those in purgatory are able to work their way to heaven. After careful study of the evidence – it’s not clear what evidence was reviewed – the Catholic Church decided that infants go to heaven after all, though limbo still exists for others.

Is the idea of the afterlife good for us? The hope of eternal life can provide meaning to those whose life on earth is filled with suffering. Even a wretched, painful life can become bearable if one believes there a life of eternal happiness follows. Perhaps the most tangible benefit comes at the time we are most likely to focus on our fate after death: when a loved one dies. The deaths of parents, spouses and children are for many the most painful moments in life. We are crushed with grief at the loss. The idea that we will never see our loved ones again can literally be too much to bear. What more comforting vision can there be than the promise that we will join them in heaven after our own death? Those who find comfort in these beliefs are indeed fortunate and I have no desire to convince them otherwise.

But there is a dark side to belief in the afterlife. At a very general level, it helps sustain the intellectual strain in humans that rejects relying on science to explain the universe in favor of imagination and superstition. In general, modern societies have given up explaining natural phenomena on the basis of supernatural forces beyond our ability to study and explain. We rely on empirical observation and science to explain hurricanes, solar eclipses, black holes, and all the other amazing phenomena we observe. But a very large percentage of Americans continue to say they believe in ghosts and other forms of existence after death for which there is no scientific evidence. While these beliefs are not necessarily related to religion, they become easier to accept if heaven is part of conventional wisdom. The proportion of people in less developed countries that have such beliefs is probably even higher. Perhaps there is no great harm from these pre-scientific views of the world if they do not fundamentally affect our behavior.

There is at least one case, however, where belief in the afterlife has a terribly destructive effect. I am thinking of Islamic radicals who blow themselves up in the hope of receiving an eternal reward that goes beyond the ordinary bliss of heaven. For centuries, we have protected ourselves from human predators by threatening to punish them if they harm us. But, if predators do not fear punishment, this strategy becomes futile. A belief in life after death does not turn someone into a suicide bomber, of course. Perhaps illogically, the vast majority of people who believe in heaven still want to live as long as possible. We enjoy life on earth and “heaven can wait.” And in case someone is tempted to take a short-cut to heaven through suicide, the Catholic Church developed the notion that suicide is itself a mortal sin that condemns one to eternal punishment . But, if a young man or woman is taught by religious authorities that suicide is morally right and that killing others in the process increases exponentially the rewards of eternity, a pre-scientific approach to understanding the universe can have its most twisted and destructive effect.
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There are plenty of things wrong with the American health care system: It is inefficient. Ineffective high cost services can waste resources while more effective low cost services are often underused. The private market distorts risk-spreading. Private insurance companies, like any private businesses, try to maximize profits. They do so by trying to sell more policies while minimizing risk. As a result, they often exclude high cost treatments, avoid enrolling people with pre-existing conditions, and impose arbitrary barriers to coverage. However, the worst flaw of the system is that it denies health care to people who do not have access to government-run plans, such as Medicare and Medicaid, or are too poor to obtain private coverage.

It is not surprising that most parties in the debate over health care reform care about their own interests. Doctors and hospitals want to protect their fees. Insurance companies want to protect their premiums. Companies that provide health care products and services do not want to suffer a loss of revenue. And the great majority of Americans, those with more or less adequate health care coverage, want to keep it without paying more. The ultimate result of all these constituencies looking after themselves may doom efforts to change the system, even though polls at the beginning of the debate showed a large majority in favor of reform.

What does God have to do with all of this? Go back to the basic flaw in the system: the uninsured who do not have access to care or who receive care on an ad hoc basis in emergency rooms. You can be sure that this group does not have lobbyists in Washington walking the halls of Congress looking after them. They watch the debate from outside Washington, often wondering what it is about. Ironically, they are often the ones who protest the reform bills most loudly because they have been led to think there are “death panels,” President Obama is going to take away the little coverage they have, or they will have no choice about doctors.

The only way to break the logjam over health care reform is for all us – at least to some extent – to put aside self interest in favor of loving our neighbor. Is that an unrealistic, even laughable, idea? Perhaps. But every major religion has endorsed the core of Jesus’ famous answer to the rabbis when asked to name the most important of God’s laws. He answered with two laws not one: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. In this case, our neighbors include those people without decent health insurance coverage. That is why the churches have a greater role to play in the health care reform debate. That is why all those who profess to believe in God, in fact, to love God, need to stop thinking only about themselves as Congress considers what to do about our deeply flawed health care system.
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If we stop thinking of God as a being, do we have to stop using the term “God”? Some people who call themselves atheists take this position. See for example, a thoughtful comment by James Tracy. Is he right?

It is possible to use words the way we want, of course, since we make up the definitions. However, I agree with Tracy that it distorts language and leads to confusion if we start defining “dog” to mean cat. However, defining God in some other way than an anthropomorphic being is a more complicated proposition. Even though the majority of persons have used the term that way for thousands of years, there are still good reasons for using the term God more broadly.

First, many important philosophers and theologians have described conceptions of God that are very different from the traditional one. Aristotle’s God was something like pure thought contemplating itself. Spinoza’s God was nature. Hegel’s God was the Absolute, which was something like an ultimate idea to which he believed history moves. Paul Tillich sometimes described God as the “ground of being” and the “ultimate concern.” Some mystical traditions have refused to describe God in concrete terms on the grounds that such a description invariably imposes limits on what is limitless. Instead, they find it possible only to say what God is not. None of these individuals would characterize themselves as atheists. We would be closing ourselves off from these valuable perspectives if we decided not to consider their conceptions of God.

Second, and even more importantly, using the term “God” more broadly than the conception of God described in the Old Testament preserves a tradition – perhaps the most important tradition we have – and creates a link among all those who participate in this tradition. This link is both an historic one and an ideological one. It provides a way for us to share in the beliefs and values of those who have gone before us, as far back as our pre-scientific ancestors who wrote the Old Testament and even earlier. It also provides a way for humans who do not think of God as a being to share in the tradition of those who do.

A Christian conservative, an Islamic mystic in the Suffi tradition, a scientist who (like Einstein) adopts Spinoza’s conception of God, and those (like me) who think of God as the spirit of love in the world all share one fundamental idea. We believe that there is something that is ultimately and supremely important in the universe. We believe there is a sacred dimension to life. By refusing to discard the term “God,” we have a way of sharing in that idea and communicating about it. In the long run, I believe we should contribute to the preservation of this tradition rather than let it fade away as science crushes old assumptions about what humans once attributed to the traditional conception of God.
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During the hearings on the confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, there was an interesting debate over the role of “empathy” and “compassion” in decision-making by judges. In praising Sotomayor, President Obama commented that empathy and compassion are some of her strengths. In contrast, some conservative opponents argued that a judge who empathizes with others or has compassion for them her will ignore the law in favor of advancing her own agenda. For example, a recent column in American Thinker says: “What America needs right now is courage and mutual respect -- not empathy and sensitivity.”

Should judges have “empathy” or “compassion” and what is the difference between these two ideas anyway? Webster’s New World Dictionary defines “empathy” as the “projection of one’s own personality into the personality of another in order to understand him better.” If you appear before a judge someday and have to explain your particular circumstances, would you want a judge who could mentally step into your shoes for a few minutes? I certainly would. The judge might still rule against you, send you to prison, deny you child custody, or take whatever action the law demanded. But one of the most frustrating, even infuriating, situations one can face is that those who have power over you do not understand your situation.

It is true that Supreme Court Justices don’t decide prison sentences or make rulings in child custody cases. They usually make purely “legal” rulings rather than decide facts. However, these legal rulings including far-reaching interpretations of the Constitution that must take into account real-world personal problems: Should a non-English speaker have a right to an interpreter in legal proceedings? Should the law require that the government provide an elevator to take a disabled person to an upper floor hearing? Should the law allow execution of a mentally disabled person? These and a thousand other cases require Supreme Court Justices to understand, as much as humanly possible, the effects of the law on individuals whose lives are very different from theirs. And, this requirement does not stop with the person who is a party before the court, for example, the defendant in a criminal case. It extends to the victims of a crime and their families, all those who might be affected significantly by a decision. It seems obvious that we want judges who understand the effects of their decisions on real people. Thus, President Obama was right that empathy is an important quality for judges, even Supreme Court Justices.

Although the word “compassion” can connote sympathy or pity, it can also mean a feeling of caring for others, even for those we do not know. In fact, it is the best word we have for genuine love of all other human beings. Should a Supreme Court Justice, or any judge, have compassion? Again, some conservatives say no. For example, Christopher Lasch in his book The Revolt of the Elites, says: “A misplaced compassion degrades both the victims, who are reduced to objects of pity, and their would-be benefactors, who find it easier to pity their fellow citizens than to hold them up to impersonal standards, attainment of which would entitle them to respect."

In The Uncertain Believer, I argue that compassion is the highest value in life. There are certainly many other worthy values, but none is as important or as central as this one. In fact, we can think of God as the central unifying idea that love of others is the highest value in life. The centrality of this value means that we should have compassion for others in whatever we do. That does not mean judges should twist the law because they “feel sorry” for someone who the law says should lose a case just as parents must discipline children whom they deeply love. Our professional, legal or moral obligation may be to send someone to prison, even to launch missiles on a terrorist camp. But in all cases, we should recognize that the people who are affected are human beings, not objects. The point is that the starting point for our basic approach to life should be compassion for others. That gives us a framework for living, from which we can carry out our responsibilities and live up to this highest value in life, or at least come as close as we can.
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Most of us were taught as children that God created the world in seven days. As we grew older, however, we learned about the age of the earth, evolution and the Big Bang, the primordial explosion of matter throughout the universe. The Big Bang probably occurred about 13.7 billion years ago, and the earth itself was formed about nine billion years later. Humans in the form of home sapiens developed perhaps 100,000 years ago. Consequently, if we think of “creation” as the history of the universe from the very beginning until the origin of the human species, it took billions of years, not seven days! How is it possible to reconcile these two radically different stories of how the universe was formed?

One way to reconcile the scientific account and the Biblical account is to interpret Genesis as a metaphorical account of creation. God still created the universe but He did so over an extremely long period. We could even look for passages in Genesis that seem consistent with this metaphorical explanation. For example, perhaps we could interpret Genesis 1:3 (“Let there be light and there was light”) as the Big Bang. We could interpret Genesis 1:27 (“God created man in his own image”) as God putting evolution in motion, knowing that the human species would come into existence billions of years later.

The problem with this approach is that it really doesn’t make any sense, does it? The authors of Genesis knew nothing about the how the universe was created. They were restating ancient legends in powerful, poetic language. Besides, would an omnipotent God really start with a fourteen billion year warm-up before getting to the main act? God as Creator is an idea developed by our pre-scientific ancestors who had no way of conceiving how the universe could be formed without a divine hand. Isaac Newton, probably the greatest scientist in history, knew nothing of the Big Bang, subatomic particles, black holes or quantum physics.

All that has changed. Scientists are steadily unraveling the mechanism and cause of the Big Bang by studying deep space and learning more about subatomic particles. For example, scientists at the Fermilab, one of the most powerful particle accelerators in the world, are trying to confirm the existence of a new subatomic particle, called the Higgs boson (or colloquially, the “God particle”) which may explain how all other particles are held together. Paradoxically perhaps, learning more about the behavior of subatomic particles may be the most promising path to understanding the vastness of the universe.

In The Uncertain Believer, I suggest a very different approach to reconciling the idea of God and creation: A modern conception of God has nothing to do with creation. Consequently, we can stop worrying about the role of God in the Big Bang or evolution and concentrate on a conception of God that provides a framework for living. That conception of God can have much greater meaning than the traditional God of the Bible by inspiring us to be as good as we can be. That leads to another paradox: Conceiving of a God that does not have the power to create the universe can lead to a God that has a much more powerful influence in our lives.
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