Douglas Wilson vs Christopher Hitchens
Loose Ends June 13th, 2007The final part of a debate between theologian Wilson and atheist polemicist Hitchens. This is Wilson speaking:
This relates to the second point, which concerns evolved morality and the past. When dealing with people whose moral judgments have differed from yours, do you regard them as “immoral” or as “less evolved?” The rhetoric of your book, your tone in these exchanges, and your recent dancing on the grave of the late Jerry Falwell would all seem to indicate the former. In your choice of words, the people you denounce are to be blamed. The word fulminations comes to mind. You write like a witty but acerbic tenth-century archbishop with a bad case of the gout. But this is truly an odd thing to do if “morality” is a simple derivative of evolution. Are you filled with fierce indignation that the koala bear hasn’t evolved ears that stick flat to the side of his head like they are supposed to? Are you wroth over the fact that clams don’t have legs yet? When you notice that the bears at the zoo continue to suck on their paws, do you stop to remonstrate with them?
Your notion of morality, and the evolution it rode in on, can only concern itself with what is. But morality as Christians understand it, and the kind you surreptitiously draw upon, is concerned with ought. David Hume showed us that we cannot successfully derive ought from is. Have you discovered the error in his reasoning? It is clear from how you defend your ideas of “morality” that you have not done so. You are a gifted writer, and you have a flair for polemical voltage. But strip it all away, and what do you have underneath? You believe yourself to live in a universe where there is no such thing as any fixed ought or ought not. But God has gifted you with a remarkable ability to denounce what ought not to be. And so, because you reject him, you have great sermons but no way of ever coming up with a text. When people start to notice the absence of texts, the absence of warrant, the absence of reasons, you adjust and compensate with rhetorical embellishment and empurpled prose. You are like the minister in the story who wrote in the margin of his notes, “Argument weak. Shout here.”

June 13th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
mmm. This is a rhetorical passage criticizing CH as being rhetorical. There is little solid content for me to comment on frankly.
In several places, he is verging on ad hominem. e.g. “You write like a witty but acerbic tenth-century archbishop with a bad case of the gout”, “You are like the minister”… etc.
AC1
June 14th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Absolutely, but their (full) debate is interesting. Which was my sole reason for posting.
And some arguments against CH stick, certainly the ‘ought’ ‘is’ one. Which lends some weight to the criticism of amateur polemics. i.e. Dawkins.
As an example, I can discuss with you basic elements of the sciences, and can relate to a certain amount that you may state. However as I am not a trained scientist I can only talk with any authority on science to a certain limit, beyond which I am talking without authority, and relying faithfully on the textual work of others or the benevolent guiding hand of someone who knows such as you.
Comments against Dawkins (sorry to use him as my scapegoat here) from Prof Alister MacGrath
“Dawkins works on the assumption that his readers know very little about Christianity. He asserts that if you believe in evolution then you cannot believe in God, because evolution is by definition atheistic. But that is a very inaccurate interpretation. Dawkins also interprets a Christian’s ‘faith’ as ‘blind trust’. To him ‘faith’ means running away from evidence. But that’s not a Christian definition of faith… People like simple answers to hard questions. That’s why Dawkins is so popular.”
Then from Terry Eagleton a Marxist literary scholar
“Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds,” Eagleton wrote, “and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.” That was only the first sentence.
More in this interesting article:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/06/news/atheist.php
I believe Dawkins has tried to defend himself by almost using the language game theory, ‘well no I’m not a theologian i’m a biologist therefore I only write using the terms of a biologist’…
which begs the question, why not stick to biology then?
June 14th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Yes it is an interesting debate. Thanks for bringing it up. I am just quibbling over the quote you picked (as usual!).
It will take me a while to digest the debate they had. I am slightly wondering if DW expends on his David Hume related point.
“The apparent gap between “is” statements and “ought” statements, when combined with Hume’s fork—the idea that all items of knowledge are either based on logic and definitions or on observation—renders “ought” statements of dubious validity.” (Wikipedia)
Doesn’t this actually destroy both CH and DWs moral systems? Isn’t DW hoisted on his own patard? I will read into this some more.
AC1
June 17th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
[...] got though the discussion of Douglas Wilson and Christopher Hitchens you had mentioned. I found it refreshing to actually read an open attack on Atheism from Douglas Wilson. Most of the [...]