 |
|
This article is the first in a two-part series.
I just finished my second dive into the Reddit AMA world. One of the most popular websites in the world, Reddit is a forum for all sorts of online conversations and presentations.
The AMA (Ask Me Anything) is a 21st century version of the medieval quodlibetal questions, during which a game theology professor would entertain any inquiry that came from the floor.
Now, things are a bit cruder and more rough and ready on Reddit than they were in the universities of the Middle Ages, but you get the idea.
When I engaged in the exercise last year, I received almost 12,000 questions and comments, making mine the third most commented-on AMA after those of Bill Gates and Jordan Peterson.
A quest for religion
This time, I’ve received over 15,000 comments and counting, making mine the second most commented-on AMA of the past year, just after Bill Gates and ahead of Bernie Sanders!
I mention this not to show how popular I am with the Reddit crowd (I’m sure most of them have never heard of me), but rather to demonstrate just how massively interested young people are in the questions of religion.
If you can make it through the plethora of obnoxious, juvenile, and insulting comments, you will actually learn a great deal about what is on the minds of the Reddit audience — mostly young men between the ages of 18 and 30 — when it comes to religion.
Sticking points to ponder
I would identify four major themes: proving the existence of God, the problem of suffering, the determination of why one would choose one religion over another, and homosexuality.
Each of these issues was addressed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times. Permit me to speak, very briefly, of each in turn.
So first of all, the question of proving God’s existence came up again and again. Are there rational grounds for believing in God? How do I know that there is a God? Can God’s reality be demonstrated to someone who does not believe in the Bible?
What struck me very positively in this regard is that the young people on Reddit seemed to have a powerful interest in God — and that’s no small thing.
God and the proofs
They weren’t treating the proposal of God’s existence as prescientific nonsense or self-serving fantasy. They were honestly wondering about God, restlessly searching for him.
What struck me a bit more negatively is that there seemed to be little or no sense that Christian theologians and philosophers have been presenting and defending arguments for God’s existence for centuries.
That the Reddit audience hadn’t an inkling of what these proofs and demonstrations might be is, at least in part, a failure of the Churches in their ministry of education.
Debating evil
The second major theme was the problem of evil. Now, it has been said that all of theology commences with and ultimately centers around the issue of justifying the ways of God in the presence of great suffering; so in a way, the intense interest of young people in this question is another encouraging sign that they are eager to think theologically.
Evil — it isn’t what many think it is
It would obviously require a lengthy book even to scratch the surface of this matter, but I would make just this one observation.
I told a number of my conversation partners that there is only one mystery more puzzling than the problem of evil, and that is the mystery of goodness.
Evil does not, strictly speaking, exist. It is the lack of a good that ought to be there, and as such, it is always parasitic upon the good.
Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. Learn more at www.WordOnFire.org