Thesis: Defended

Just this afternoon, I successfully defended my Master’s thesis. So, I’m an MA now. Ashley M.A. You can call me that from now on. Just kidding. But, you will have to call me Dr. Ashley for at least a few weeks when I finally get the PhD. By have to, I mean that I won’t respond to anything else.

I know it probably seems to some of you that I must have completed this thesis twelve times over already. It feels that way to me too. And, okay, I technically do still have to make a few revisions, but this time few doesn’t mean 30 hours worth. Few means I hope to finish all the revisions tonight. And, the important part is that I have already passed!

Several people have asked me what my thesis is about, and I have kind of answered a few of those people, but my thesis has changed many times and I haven’t always felt like talking about it more than was absolutely necessary. But, now I’m more in the mood to talk.

I totally understand if some of you want to stop here, but if you’re interested in the details of my thesis, then, well, continue!

As most of you know, I study theology and philosophy of religion. Studying theology has always seemed to me like an exceptionally weird thing to do, even though I do it myself and am surrounded by others who have also made this weird choice. Truth be told: we are a strange bunch.

My school, together with the school across the street that I will be attending next year, is the place in the world to study the kind of theology I do. I avoid naming that theology on my blog, because it’s a tiny academic world and I don’t want to be that searchable (but, let me know if you’re interested).

I study this kind of theology, because, well . . . I believe it. I think it paints an accurate picture of God and the world. It’s a pretty radical picture, especially of God, but after you study for a while, what once seemed radical starts to see quite normal. Radical as I may be, I still consider myself a Christian and I still believe in God. But, over the last year or so, I’ve inched a lot closer to being agnostic; it’s not that I think there isn’t a God, but rather that I question how much we can know about God. So, for my thesis, I decided to look into a non-theistic strand of thought that exists within the theology/philosophy I study.

This strand of thought it called naturalism. Naturalists believe that this world is all that there is–there is no transcendent being who exists apart from the world who we might call God. Naturalists are mostly radical empiricists, so they do not speculate beyond what we have the physical evidence to support. There is little or no empirical evidence to suggest the existence of a transcendent God, so they don’t posit belief in one.

In my thesis, I explored the limits of naturalism, so I asked, what’s missing if you take God out of theology. My first conclusion is that radical empiricism is not the best epistemology (way of knowing). It’s far too limiting to stick to only what you have the physical evidence to support. Empiricism leaves no room for imaginative thinking–of exploring ideas. You don’t have to know that something is undeniably true in order for it be a powerful idea. It’s important to always keep in mind that our knowledge is limited, but we can do this, even while exploring new ideas and regularly testing them against our experiences of the world. This is a difficult concept for people to grasp, especially when it comes to religion. I mean, religion is supposed to provide certainty about the world, right? Isn’t that why it’s so appealing to people? Yeah, that probably is why it’s so appealing, but people who dismiss religion so simply as something to lean on to calm their fears about the unknown, well, those people fail to understand the complexity of religious experience.

My answer to the big question is that a personal God is missing from naturalism. A God who knows me and understands me and laughs with me and grieves with me. Maybe this God cannot intervene in the world, but I talk to God and God understands and wants what’s best for me in every moment. While I can’t conclude that a personal God definitely exists, I maintain that such a God provides existential meaning and serves as a powerful symbol for religious experience. Without such a symbol, I think religious naturalism is lacking. So, for now, I continue on as a theist. Certainty is overrated anyway.