The Heavenly Voice

Eventually, Lia Aminuddin and the followers of “God’s Kingdom of Eden” sect were forcibly evacuated from their headquarter in order to prevent a clash with local residents. Lia, who has claimed she is imbued with the spirit of the archangel Gabriel as well as being Mary the mother of Jesus, was detained on religious defamation charges, based on an ambiguous article of the Criminal Code which opens a wide and unlimited space of interpretation.

On one hand, there will be lengthy exhausting legal debates –particularly on what is known in Indonesia as ‘pasal karet’ or rubber article, which is very elastic and subjective; while on the other hand, there will be never-ending labyrinth of theological debates. This condition will create a theatrical space which absurdity is equivalent to Samuel Beckett’s dramas.

Judging individual belief?

The main problem is that personal belief can never be incarcerated in the legal framework and is detached from religious logical discourse. The phenomenon of “God’s Kingdom of Eden” is all about individual belief and conviction.

Legal sophistication vis-à-vis personal belief is like a toothless tiger. How can anyone judge other man’s belief, or regard him as “heretic and mislead”, or accuse him on “religious defamation” and “blasphemy”? Isn’t any criterion used to measure a belief, particularly religious belief, is a belief itself?

I mean that when I believe that my religion bears the only truth, I will charge another of different belief as “deviate”. Particularly if his or her belief has real and potential threats of reducing the quantity of my faith’s adherents, I will regard his or her belief as ‘deviate’ (according to my faith), and further, “mislead” (because it seizes the members of my religious community).

In the meantime, theology as a religious logical discourse cannot do anything with personal belief. We often heard about this Anselm’s axiom: Fides quaerens intellectum, that faith or belief, is seeking understanding. Nevertheless, an explanation can never “generate” faith, in spite of however logical, rigorous and sophisticated it is. That is because faith is a free blessing (gratia) from God and not resulted by human’s effort. Theology is just an attempt to articulate this blessing experience in the rational way.

That is why any theological discourse, however sophisticated and many empirical or logical “evidences” it has, cannot lead anyone to change his or her faith. Similar phenomenon can be found even in scientific field, although in different manifestation.

Thomas Kuhn found that paradigm shift in science is similar to the act of repent in religion (metanoia), a moment where one (or group of people) change his belief which sometimes beyond any rational consideration. If one believes that process of the world creation in the Old Testament book of Genesis is true, that God creates the world within six days, so any evidence of the modern physical theories, evolutionary biology, and technological sophistication will never be able to change his or her belief. Purportedly, Stephen Hawking complained that at least he received three or five mails a week saying that his theories were wrong and the Genesis stories were right!

Risk of Religion

Such phenomenon of Eden community is an inherent risk in every religious tradition. Therefore, all through the history, similar communities emerge for many times in various manifestations, and it will always do in the future.

I call it religion’s risk because religion is full of risk. Entering the religious domain, as John D. Caputo has reminded, is entering the impossible domain. Caputo, in his excellent book On Religion, compared religious man as one who makes a pact with the impossible, and therefore, becomes “impossible people”.

Religion is indeed a rich reservoir of the impossible tales either recorded in the Scriptures or inherited from generation to generation. Throughout the history, we find those “impossible men” who divided the waters of the sea, called a dead person back to life, ascended to heaven and backed home in a night, virgin had a baby, fragrant dead bodies of Saints– and many other facts that stifle us and make us hard to breathe.

This persuades the modern men, sons of Kantian enlightenment, to establish “religion within rational boundaries” and judge everything including religious belief under rational judgment. As a result, they compare heaven, hell, angel (and even God!) with ghost or evil spirit we see in horror movies. However, history shows that those impossibles were too smooth to be incarcerated in a mere logical framework. There will always be person like Lia Aminuddin who listen (again) the heavenly voices.

Here, Caputo proposed the third way: neither to refuse modernity and believe in the impossible tales as the only truth (like people who sent letters to Hawking), nor to refuse the impossible and regard it as nonsense, infantile neurosis, or massive deception of the people (as the aufklärer did). But it is to accept the impossible tales in critical manner based on sound skepticism. Even though this third way is problematic because it requires patience and awareness, it is the most accurate and wisest one for this case.

To ignore the impossible tales and regard Lia as “heretic and mislead”, is in vain. Next time, in certain condition, there will be many other who claim to listen (again) the heavenly voices. On the other hand, to accept the impossible tales as truth, or even the only truth, will raise dangerous delusion and keep the mental hospital fully occupied. 

What we need now is an open mind based on a sound skepticism. In other word, you will know them by their fruits. As a note, this is the saying of Jesus, whose life was full of miracle… []