alt Hacker News"Nothing true can be said about God from a posture of defense."
- from the novel Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson
I take this quote to mean that most people's idea of "apologetics" (arguing to convince people that the facts of Christianity or some other religion are true) is kind of pointless. You'll never convince someone logically of something that has to be experienced viscerally. LLMs don't help with that at all.
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> Nothing true can be said about God from a posture of defense.
This is a self-defeating statement. The statement itself is a claim about God. If it is true, then it contradicts itself because it asserts a truth about God (namely, that no truths can be defended about Him). This undermines its own premise.
The church has a long history of defending and clarifying the principles and practices of faith in a relatively academic way, in a way that would surprise people who believe religion is an anti-intellectual endeavor.
I would say there are both intellectual and felt needs. Apologetics is kind of its own genre of rhetoric and doesn’t satisfy everyone. It can be better to offer to research an objection together, rather than try to win it (more fun, too.)
Religious debates in a friendly setting can also lead to personal sharing that opens someone to emotional or spiritual experiences.
Minimizing intellectual concerns by overriding with an emotional experience does not “work”, not long-term and certainly not over generations.
But there are also people who have few or no intellectual concerns! Caveats all the way down.
From an outside perspective, that quote takes on a whole other meaning. Namely, that very few statements about "God" don't have similar but contradicting statements - making it (almost?) impossible to say anything definitive about them at all (from a SAT solver/proving kind of perspective).
To many the idea of bringing the intellect fully into action in religion seems almost repellent. The intellect seems so cold and measured and measuring, and the will so warm and glowing. Indeed the joy of the will is always figured in terms of warmth – such words as ardor, fervor and the like come from Latin words for a fire burning: there is a fear that intellect can only damp down the fire. Many again who do not find the use of the intellect in religion actually repellent, regard it as at least unnecessary – at any rate for the layman – and possibly dangerous. One can, they say, love God without any very great study of doctrine. Indeed, they say, warming to their theme, some of the holiest people they know are quite ignorant. Plenty of theologians are not as holy as an old Irishman they have seen saying his Rosary. All this is so crammed with fallacy as to be hardly worth refuting. A man may be learned in dogma, and at the same time proud or greedy or cruel: knowledge does not supply for love if love is absent. Similarly, a virtuous man may be ignorant, but ignorance is not a virtue. It would be a strange God Who could be loved better by being known less. Love of God is not the same thing as knowledge of God; love of God is immeasurably more important than knowledge of God; but if a man loves God knowing a little about Him, he should love God more from knowing more about Him: for every new thing known about God is a new reason for loving Him. It is true that some get vast love from lesser knowledge; it is true even that some get vast light from lesser knowledge: for love helps sight. But sight helps love too.
After all, the man who uses his intellect in religion is using it to see what is there. But the alternative to seeing what is there is either not seeing what is there, and this is darkness; or seeing what is not there, and this is error, derangement, a kind of double darkness. And it is unthinkable that darkness whether single or double should be preferred to light.
Indeed light is the joy of the mind as warmth is the joy of the will. But warmth and light are both effects of fire, warmth fire as felt, light fire as seen (and seen by). It seems strange to value the one effect and not the other of that fire by which the Holy Ghost is figured to us. It is an odd delusion that one is warmer in the dark, that one can love God better in the dark.There are a lot of good theologians who are uncomfortable engaging in apologetics. It's easy to get immersed in the debate, and turn towards heresy or dishonesty without noticing. This precedes AI.
From where are you deriving your sense of "pointlessness"? If there is no absolute standard (such as God), then all truths, including moral truths, are determined by individuals or societies, making them relative.
>You'll never convince someone logically of something that has to be experienced viscerally.
While you might be right, Christianity in particular is based on truth claims, including specially the resurrection, so the Christian tradition places special emphasis on rational defense. Apologetics is not just a means to persuade others; it is also a means to persuade oneself.
Edit: Responses say that all religions involve truth claims. True, perhaps I was imprecise. I only mean that the Christian case is especially stark. St. Paul: "If Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain." I'm not aware of another faith tradition that considers itself to hang upon a single boolean.