I have been mulling an age-old truth lately: What you see depends on where you are sitting.
Zhuangzi constantly reminds us to not take our opinions, even what we think we know, too seriously. That’s good advice given how limited our perspective is. We can only see what’s visible from where we are. There are means of extending our perspective, but they, too, are limited and we employ them inconsistently.
I think “where we sit” weighs particularly on how we perceive fairness and injustice. I am outraged by a developer who has apparently bought off three politicians in my county. They seem determined to approve his bid to remove a mountain right next to my town in order to make crushed rock–despite the town’s unanimous opposition, and despite his application not meeting legal requirements. But I’m able to live here at all only because my government committed genocide* against the people who lived here before–I recognize that as an incomparably greater injustice, but somehow it doesn’t get my blood boiling the same way. That can only be because I am a “victim” of the smaller injustice, and a beneficiary of the greater one.
I see this “where we sit” dynamic playing out also in how we perceive the character of God in the Bible and the justice or injustice of eternal punishment for non-believers. From where believers sit, sure, hell is unfortunate, but God is sovereign, he decides what’s good, and hey, you choose it anyway. It’s not unjust because our offense against God is infinite, and not unloving because he offered you a way out. I think a key reason believers can be so sanguine about it is it doesn’t apply to them. And not having direct access to a non-believer’s brain, they can tell themselves, “oh those people really know deep down that the Bible is true, they just. . .[are too proud, want to sin, whatever].”
Non-believers sit in a very different place and see a very different scene. Some of us–including me–have been terrorized by the threat of hell. Having experienced that, we can’t accept the argument that while hell may be unfortunate, it’s necessary & just. Here’s how it has played out for me:
- I grew up surrounded by Christian beliefs and messaging.
- I never believed. But neither was I certain that it was not true, or at least some version of it.
- I tried to believe. I really did. But I couldn’t.
- Because I didn’t–couldn’t–believe, but wasn’t certain it wasn’t true, I concluded that if hell really is the consequence of unbelief, I’m going to be tortured in hell. Although I didn’t affirmatively believe it, the uncertainty was enough to be terrifying.
- I cannot imagine how it could possibly be just to punish me for not doing something I am incapable of doing (i.e., believing). As the supposed punishment was infinite, so was the injustice if it were true.
- I conclude that an infinitely unjust “God” would not be worthy of worship, even if it were real.
- Long after I affirmatively disbelieved in that “God,” the fear has continued to resonate. (Emotions don’t obey the intellect.) It has gradually dissipated over time.
I don’t expect Christians to not sit where they sit, and not see what they see. I do think the path toward a better world goes through the forest of being willing to understand another person’s perspective, even if you don’t agree with it. It’s in that spirit I share with you this slice of where I sit and what I see.
*According to the Holocaust Museum of Houston, we wiped out about 97% of the indigenous population. We came up with the ideology of “Manifest Destiny” to justify it.
Questions:
How is it possible to understand someone else’s perspective when you disagree with it? Is it possible to disagree without just dismissing the other’s perspective as “wrong?”