The Rashomon Effect

In the debate over religion and its place in the modern world, a lot of fuss is made over the “evidence” for God. Skeptics argue there is nothing to prove God’s existence; some, using ideas like intelligent design, say there’s lots of evidence.

Of course, like a typical Episcopalian, I’m going to say both yes and no to this question. As I pointed out in the comments in a recent post, in a court room, for example, there’s evidence like “Exhibit A.” But there’s also testimony, and testimony is considered evidence even in the absence of tangible items. And so while we may not have an Exhibit A for God, we have the testimony of billions of humans across the eons of our existence.

One of the points that Richard Dawkins, high priest of religious skepticism, makes is that if there is a God, it is highly unlikely that it is the God of any of the literally countless religions and faith traditions; statistically speaking, the chance that “God” is the God of Jesus is no more likely, says Dawkins, than the God of the residents of Alpha Centauri.

But what if they’re really all the same God?

Let’s say there’s a two-car collision in the middle of a four-way intersection. There is one witness standing at each corner. (Already this is a bad metaphor, I know. Not only am I letting a car accident represent God (!!!), I have to ignore that in an actual accident, there would be lots of tangible evidence. But stick with me.)

The witnesses on the northwest and southeast corners both saw the entire incident; however, they had opposite perspectives. They might not agree on who is at fault. In important ways, their testimony might be contradictory. But both of them are still telling the truth.

The witness on the northeast corner is prejudiced about women drivers, and one of the drivers involved was a woman. Might such a prejudice affect what the witness thinks he saw? Would it tend to lead him to make certain assumptions? Might such a witness even be willing to deliberately color his testimony because of his personal views?

Still with me? Okay. Now, let’s say for the sake of argument that the witness on the southwest corner is a Hebrew from 1400 BC. What would his reaction to a car accident be? What language might he use to attempt to explain what he saw? His account is likely to be wildly different than any of the other three witnesses, and would perhaps strike us as fanciful or even crazy.

So here we have four people with a shared experience, but all of them describe it in significantly different ways. None of them are lying, but some of them might let bias color their recollections. One could not understand what he was witnessing. Maybe some made assumptions. Maybe not all of them have perfect memories.

Does this mean there wasn't a car accident?