Yet There Is Method In It

Having already dealt in earlier parts of this review with the classic arguments for the existence of God and a postmodern interpretation of religion, I now want to examine some more metaphysical concepts. As earlier noted Richard Harries wrote this book as a realist apologetic for Christian belief. In other words he is attempting to convey through realist language and concepts a summary of what contemporary orthodox Christian belief entails. This therefore requires him to deal with metaphysics as a good deal of Christian belief involves supernatural or transcendent categories of being and reality.

In this part of the review then I will look fairly briefly at three issues he raises. First what is the soul? Secondly how should I live my life? And finally Miracles and the laws of nature.

Soul Language

Don Cupitt the radical postmodernist theologian whose influence colours Anthony Freemans theology (to which Harries book is a response) in one of his books went to great lengths to make sense of the concept of soul and spirit. Looking at their varying etymologies he pointed out that spirit came from the same word for air and the concepts must be related - spirit is supposed to be invisible yet in the traditional theistic cosmology it is also a fundamental part of our environment in which we have our being. Similarly the soul has as its latin originate “animus” from where we get the concept of animation or more literally being alive. This is fairly evident from the traditional Christian view that at death the soul and body are seperated - one may even suggest that this is the theological definition of death. What is interesting is that in Hebrew theology (still evidenced today in Judaism) is that the blood is that which carries our life - thus blood is synonymous with the soul. From that titbit of information hopefully the importance of Jewish kosher traditions should be evident. But also of dramatic interest the geophysical concept of hell as being the “underworld” probably originates from the synonymous association of the soul with blood. As likewise the notion of hell being a painful place. These ideas coagulate (!) around the simple premise that a violent death is one wherein the blood is spilt (draining into the earth and thus into the underworld).

The difficulty with soul language is that today many people of belief and unbelief are not exactly sure what the soul is meant to be. Is it a thing? A Physical entity? Is it perhaps with our greater understanding of the human body more synonymous now with our consciousness (as opposed our blood)?

Harries attempts very simply to answer these questions - and if one were to accept his explanation one may be concerned to wonder why such clarity is lacking elsewhere (pulpit, classroom, social convention).

… it is not necessary to believe that we have a soul that is a kind of a box within a box. Modern science, like the Hebrews of old, stresses that we are psychosomatic unities, body, mind and spirit all bound up together. It may be that ’soul’ language is important in drawing attention to our spiritual nature and destiny. But we do not have to believe that soul is an isolatable thing. Nor do we have to believe that our bodies will be raised from the grave like characters in a painting by Stanley Spencer. So far as we know, our bodies decompose, to become part of the earth which in due course is recycled in other ways.

I have a strong sense of approval for the psychosomatic unity of the person as described by Harries here, and I think that at a simple brushstroke hopefully it dissolves some of the more incredulous speculations made about the ’soul’ by those who either believe or disbelieve in it as being an organic ‘thing’ in the same way in which my lungs are essential to my body. It is not and Christian belief makes no such demands.

Before I move onto questions of how we should live this life of ours I want briefly to consider eschatology (the end things). Harries mentions the Christian notion of the resurrection of the body but suggests that again this is not a literal raising of our corpses from the grave but is perhaps a more symbolic concept concerning the after-life. He makes no attempt to describe what such a life may be like - whether we are conscious of it - whether it is eternal bliss or whatever. He does reiterate the traditional Christian theology that we will be re-created in the ’stuff of glory’ but humbly concedes he has no idea what this may mean. I have my own thoughts informed by Wittgenstein and Meister Eckhart not to mention zen and a scientific theory of the block universe - but I shall keep these to myself for now. I shall however quote a rather nice musical analogy that Harries proffers -

In the same way that music written for one instrument, say a violin, can sometimes be played on other instruments, the music which we are, played on the instruments of flesh and blood in this life, can be played on another instrument in the next.

How should I/we live our life?

Harries having discussed the notion of the soul and briefly addressed eschatology then discusses in an interesting and unique way a concept of heaven and divine justice. He actually agrees albeit in a limited fashion with the Christian existentialism of Freeman. Without explicit references to Kierkegaard or perhaps even to Eckhart and his exhortation to lose and then find oneself within the eternal now it is obvious that these are influences.

Freeman believes that this desire for true justice can be met by concentrating on the quality of life rather than its extent. He suggests that if we live intensely, in the here and now, in the light of our highest values, then we will achieve a quality of life which is more important than anything else. The quality of a play or poem does not depend on its length, nor does the quality of our lives.

As Martin Luther King once said “longevity has its place” but it isn’t the be -all and end-all. Our lives when scrutinized in the here and now (the eternal constant of the present) is more fruitfully lived in a quest of self-authenticity than it is in placing upon ourselves the incredible burden of the expectation of eternity and the existential paralysis that this may entail.

Although Harries offers some support for this - calling this carpe diem philosophy an important pastoral truth he does not dwell on it nor give it his total endorsement. Rather he insists on the necessity of eternal life and divine justice as an explanatory footnote for why a supposedly loving God could impose or allow some incredibly unbearable lives for so many people.

I felt a little dissappointed at this shifting of the focus onto the grander philosophical speculations about the problem of evil - when as ‘mere’ mortals a Christian Existentialism that endorses self-authenticity and intense experience of life here and now can be a legitimate response to the everyday problems of social evil that blight the world.

Miracles and the Laws of Nature

However despite my dissappointments Harries proceeds with an internal logic that continues to enchant me (as an eventual summary of my review I could simply say he makes a very convincing case). He returns to the problem of evil - not all suffering in the world is caused by human beings, there is disease and natural disasters.

Harries then offers a reason for not blaming God for natural disasters - by shifting the focus away from our sense of suffering. In our finite time and limited perspective of the entire history of the universe as it was, is and is to be it is rather short-sighted to get angry about natural disasters. To use an analogy of my own it is rather like reading sleeping beauty but getting so despondent about the chances of her ever waking up that I simply discard the book adopt a jaded view of the story and never come to realise the eucatastrophe (the happy ending) that would have awaited me had I been patient.

Of course one might argue that if we continue to insist on the positive identification of God as love as an eternal and objective truth (albeit by definition a truth that has to be accepted conditionally on faith) surely our patience is being sorely tested? As Homer Simpson once pitifully prayed “Dear God, give the bald guy a break”.

Harries though offers a slighlty more palatable explanation - whilst reaffirming his philosophical colours as a theistic evolutionist. God does not simply make the world, he makes the world make itself.

God has given the basic elements of matter a life of their own and has woven the universe from the bottom upwards through the free interplay of millions of forces.

Thus for example earthquakes are no bad of themselves - as though they were some kind of moral affrontary - it is simply a natural process and the behaviour of the earth doing what the earth is supposed to do.

This seems to be a very disinterested deistic God who sets the whole chain of events in motion and who is either disinterested in the suffering caused along the way, or who is perhaps positively insistent on the presence or perception of such suffering (which does not sit well with a loving God).

Harries offers a second justification for this view. In order to be the type of thinking and choosing beings that we are we need a relatively stable environment. In other words the environment in which we live with all its pitfalls and dangers and disasters. If, Harries argues, we lived in an Alice in Wonderland style world where the laws of nature could be abrogated by a God whose constantly saying “oops” everytime a natural disaster occurs and who plucks people into his figurative hand and takes them up to safety we would never learn to think at all.

Harries seems to be describing a distant and uninvolved God and perhaps also therefore seems to be rejecting determinism (which is not necessarily a scientifically sound view). At some times he appears to suggest that it simply wouldnt be fair for God to do one miracle and then not ot perform others… why not? If God is all-powerful then he can do anything right? Include being morally inconsistent and distinctly unfair in his treatment of people. I don’t wish to let this childish diatribe undermine Harries exposition of Christian theology or to suggest that disbelief is therefore a de facto better position to hold. I do think it perhaps illustrates though the philosophical difficulties of a via positiva - a positive list of definitions concerning God.

A few paragraphs later and Harries does suggest that possibly at some point in history a suspension of the laws of nature has taken place and a miracle has occured. He makes no effort to describe when this may have been or why it may have occured - but one could assume on account of his orthodox Christian beliefs that he may have had the bodily resurrection of Jesus as an example.

Concluding Notes

This section of the book dissappointed me the most as it seems at times he is finding himself going in circles. It is as I have already described an example of how the via positiva can make theology untenable as a series of acceptable propositions. In fairness though Harries does maintain a certain consistency with everything he has discussed previously. He by no means makes objective statements of truth but statements of objective belief liberally interspersed with a genuinely cognitive agnosticism that says ‘I don’t know all the answers but I’m doing the best that I can’.

I had hoped that the block universe and eternalism may have been discussed but perhaps he felt such concepts too difficult to describe and elaborate upon for his intended audience.

What has been evident is what one may call a primitive form of Christian universalism (though he may reject that label). And a tendency towards an Irenaen theodicy (with which I have some sympathy). Irenaeus (2nd cent.) proposed that we are made in the image of God but that it is through living our lives we grow into the likeness of Him. Similarly Harries response to the problem of evil - particularly natural evil - seems to be (and this is a fairly common theme in Christian theology) that suffering can be redemptive.

My one nod of approval in the direction of this idea - that it is through suffering and evil that we come to know the Good - is that the concept and notion of suffering - of being in a state of suffering - of identifying oneself as being a victim of some misfortune is a self-centred or solopsistic viewpoint - and that redemption may lie in resignation to the fact that we are mortal, finite beings within a specific time and space - but that if we adopt a quantum view (similar to the notion of the flapping of a butterflies wings in the amazon causes wind across the globe) and transcend our solopsism to adopt a the-optic (God’s eye) view of the universe in its entirety encompassing all space and time (the block universe) as a single place in an instantaneous present - then the problem is dissolved.

The final part of this review concerns Rationalism and Christian belief.

Here is a link to all 10 parts of the excellent review of Charles Taylor’s “A Secular Age” over on the Only a Game blog.

I think my last link went to part 7. Subsequent parts 8, 9 and 10 are very good and worth taking the time out to read.

In this part of my review I wish to briefly explore Harries discussions on the postmodern view of language. He is attempting to describe the views of Anthony Freeman the postmodernist theologian who has ceased to believe in a supernatural or transcendent God - seeing Him rather as being a projection of human ideals. Much of postmodernism has its roots in relativism, subjectivism and a sort of late Wittgensteinian Philosophy of Language.

A simple exposition of this philosophy goes like this:

mind is a social reality and language a public phenomenon. We see mothers bending over their prams making noises at their babies. In due course the noises are reciprocated and come to be recognized as talk. Soon this talk becomes internalized as thought. But the talk is prior and public and this enters into the very soul of our thinking. Because language is a public possession, written texts are particularly important. How those texts are intepreted or read still depends very much on the interests and outlook of the readers and these in turn will reflect the ineterests and concerns already built into the language that we use to intepret the texts. If we say we want to find out what a particular text really means, we are stymied, for the language we used to interpet it ourselves is a given, which will shape how we read…

Harries, again somewhat suprisingly is not completely anti-pomo. He accepts a certain degree of interpretative and cognitive relativism. However he rejects total scepticism and abandonment of truth and meaning notions - correctly suggesting that such a position would dissolve philosophy into just one of many methods of literary criticism.

I would just add by means of a clarification that although language is public and in turn shapes our ways of thinking this should by no means be used to suggest that speech is thought, or that absence of speech indicates absence of thought. (I could write much more here on my theories of unthought-thoughts and vocal-thought-thinking-thoughts or about the conscious and unconscious but I will digress.)

I will finish with a quote from Anthony Freeman that illustrates what one may call a postmodern view of religion - it is this view which Harries is ultimately attempting to challenge with recourse to realist arguments.

“A false distinction within Christian doctrine itself between an essential core and a negotiable husk. In presenting the faith to this generation I am bound to be presenting a different faith from that which my forefathers presented. Not just a different interpretation of the same essential core, but a different faith. This is because there is no essence of inner core. The interpretation is not like taking the shell off a nut. It is like peeling the layers off an onion: the interpretation goes all the way down. All is intepretation. That is the essence.”

In his apologetic for Christian and Theistic Realism Richard Harries deals with the tricky field of arguments for the existence of God. This is rather important as he is after all trying to argue for the existence of God as a real being, and furthermore propose that it can be posited using realist language.

Perhaps suprisingly he is not altogether convinced by the standard or classic arguments/proofs of the existence of God and even goes so far as to describe them as “regulative ideas” inasmuch as it lends comforting support to “those who would like to see the world as the product of a rational intelligence”. Yet, he argues, such regulative ideas are nothing more than “nice” - they have little logical foundation (they cannot stand alone). His concession to the traditional arguments is thus: “the so-called proof therefore must always leave the matter open”. In other words it is not so much a logical formula that may be presented to the sceptic or unbeliever in the hope that they would somehow be convinced of the necessity of belief, as it is a grounding in rational thought that satisfies the already believing.

I would like now to focus on his treatment of the argument from design, as it is an argument that still has great currency amongst theists and which causes the most consternation for materialist atheists - not least because of the seemingly pseudo-scientific nature of the language game that some modern proponents of the design argument seem to adhere to.

Harries argues that the argument from design fails from the outset. The notion that as a computer may infer a human designer so too the world implies a divine designer is an illogical inference by progression. The inference demands a standard of comparison and by its definition the universe (i.e. all ‘created’ matter) is beyond complete or categorical perception and thus will not yeild to comparison.

When it comes to the universe, I do not have a category of designed universes to compare with another category that have somehow sprung up of themselves. There is only one universe. (There may very well be many worlds in addition to this one but by definition the God with whom we are concerned is the Creator of all possible worlds, i.e. the universe.) So we are simpy not in a position, on the basis of logic, to say whether the universe is designed or not. The matter is open.

I would add that the God-hypothesis Harries is proposing (i.e. the Judaeo-Christian creator God) similarly by necessity is the creator of all possible universes, and if we wish to talk of parallel universes then a new terminology such as meta-universe is needed.

Harries continues by praising as an example the evolutionary account of the creatures of the world such as those posited by Dawkins. He has no problem with the theory that says that “through a process of natural selection and random mutation… the most complex and beautiful forms can evolve from simple ones over a long period of time.” This is a thoroughly reasonable scientific account and as the evidence to support it grows we have little or no reason to doubt its retitude.

However this does not negate the idea of a designer - as he has already argued the classical proof as it is, is beyond resolution and the argument must remain open. Consequently he advocates a theory of theistic evolution (without going into details).

He also accepts - to the point of sympathy anyway - the position of scepticism about God’s goodness as evinced through the waste and violence that is resplendent throughout nature. But he suggests this does not negate the idea of design and is concerned with altogether a different matter entirely. He neatly wraps up the theistic evolutionary worldview with a quote from Frederick Temple in the 19th century “God makes the world make itself”. In short he argues arguments from design do not prove the existence of God or design, but neither does a scientific description of how the ‘process’ works resolve the God-hypothesis either.

A final brief comment on the classic arguments for the existence of God as found in the philosophy of religion and their alienation from religious belief as practised and lived goes as follows: “A person could come to the end of a logical train of argument with the conclusion that God must logically, exist: and it could leave him stone cold.”

The classic arguments focusing as they do on various aspects or properties of the proposed divinity always diminish the meta-concept of the divinity that the Judeao-Christian traditions believe in and worship.

Later on in his consideration of rational arguments or proofs of the existence of God he touches on a postmodern or holistic psychology of belief and disbelief. “It is always possible to give a psychological explanation of both belief and disbelief.”

Of course such explanations do not prove/disprove the beliefs but they may shed further understanding on the processes involved. He uses monotheism and its attachment to the argument from causality as an example. A monetheist

“looking at the argument from causality will always tend to have some sympathy with it and want to go along with it, because he or she already believes there is a Creator. Because their heart already moves in gratitude from Creation to Creator, it is natural for their mind to move in that direction as well. Cardinal Newman once wrote that: ‘The whole man moves, paper logic is but the record of it.’ I believe this is too extreme and that logic can act as the helmsman of the ship, not simply a log book of where we have been. Nevertheless, Newman’s remark does bring out the important truth, that our great shifts of belief or disbelief are never purely intellectual, they involve the whole person. So, because we know God in our own life, we will naturally believe him to be present in the life of the world of which we are a part.”

I am reminded of two Wittgenstein quotes here that I feel are relevent (though I shall paraphrase). Firstly that the sum of belief dawns on the believer in the same way that as the sun rises we can better see to the horizon (in other words belief may be enhanced by logical or rational argument but rarely if ever can it be prompted by it). Secondly the world of the happy man is very different to that of the unhappy man - thus reinforcing Harries psychological point I think that a person who is inclined to theism will see and feel the strength of arguments that support his belief even though independent of this a priori belief those same arguments are incapable of logically resolving the questions.

I am moved to remember that St Anselm talked of “Faith seeking Understanding” and not of understanding or knowledge in order to find Faith.

Harries concludes the chapter concerning belief with a brief discussion on the various types of disbelief. “I suspect that most of those who disbelieve do so because they have had a bad experience of religion. Some do so because their understanding of religion is full of misconceptions. Some may be unwilling to make the necessary changes in lifestyle which the Christian faith asks of us. Others see no way of reconciling the tragic quality of so much existence with the claim that there is a loving Creator. There is a variety of reasons, all of which have to be looked at seperately.”

I find this brief paragraph unsatisfactory. On the one hand I appreciate his nuanced commentary that “atheism” is not one single monolothic entity. That there are various types of disbelief and reasons for disbelief and that each needs be considered seperately. I think that this kind of pluralism is a healthy alternative to the ‘them and us’ mentality often exhibited by the loudest tub-thumpers for either side. Yet I feel that he has missed out on the category of disbelievers who genuinely have concluded - indeed one might say believe - that there is no God. He would probably classify these as ‘misconceptions’ and this would betray the chauvenistic attitude of someone who maintains that in the end belief is good and disbelief (at the least) harmful to the self.

I would add though that such a category is difficult to discuss - atheists don’t like to be called ‘believers’ - even if they object to a narrow or naive definition of faith/belief. I would propose that it may even be difficult to isolate these different types of disbelief - for a person who through a solely materialist epistemology has decided that there is no God may very well have also had a bad experience of religion, hold different views on morality, and even be responding negatively to a radically different God-hypothesis than that held by believers.

Also he tends to bypass agnostics here, although one may say that his stance that the “proofs” of the existence of God are not “proofs” and that philosophically the matter remains open is a nod in their direction. All in all though despite these criticisms I think he displays a fairmindedness and openness to plurality of belief all too rare in this arena of debate.

Part 7 of the “A Secular Age” review on the Only a Game Blog is here.

This is entitled The Imminent Frame and is a discussion on materialism versus transcendentalism.

It raises the contentious issue of belief in epistemology.

Richard Dawkins for example holds what is considered a naive interpretation of Faith when he says:

“Faith, being belief that isn’t based on evidence, is the principal vice of any religion,” whereas Science “is free of the main vice of religion, which is faith”.

As a counterpoint Charles Taylor quotes evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin as an example of a materialist who maintains a lucidity about “their prior ontological commitments”.

“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to understanding the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori allegiance to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.”

Here is my long overdue book review on Richard Harries “The Real God“. Published in 1994 it is a short work on the philosophy of religion and basic theology by the then Bishop of Oxford Richard Harries. The full title of the book is The Real God: A response to Anthony Freeman’s God in Us. Thus this may be seen as being part of a dialogue, however to Harries credit it is not necessary to have first read the other book in order to make sense of this work.

This book is essentially a Realist apologetic for Christian belief and its remit is neatly summed up in the blurb by the question “If God exists, how can we know this?”

Immediately this should get materialist atheists and varying degrees of agnostics interested as the question seems to imply discussion on the physical and empirical basis of theistic belief. This should also interest students of “language games” who may wonder at the degree to which Harries seeks to straddle the science-religion divide. (Note this is really a false dichotomy - as Wittgenstein rejected the notions of islands of discourse - similarly in terms of hypothesis and narratives of origin religion and science have somewhat overlapping interests).

Significantly though this book was not written with the average Dawkins supporter in mind - and predates the “God Delusion” by some years. It may be interesting and informative to compare the different God-hypothesis both authors present (but thats a whole ‘nother task!)

Primarily as noted this book was a response to Anthony Freeman’s “God in Us”. Freeman was an Anglican priest and member of the “Sea of Faith” theological school who argued from a postmodern perspective about the human origins of religion. He eventually left the institutional church after
arguing that God as a metaphysical entity was not real, but that God was a projection of human ideals.

The Sea of Faith network have been variously described as Christian Atheists and Christian Humanists. Though as befits a postmodern school of thought they evade precise definition by virtue of holding many differing views without proferring any particular orthodoxy. Perhaps the most important position they do hold in common is that irrespective of the divine or human character of religion, the reality or non-existence of a deity, religion can play a positive role both personally and socially.

Harries responds to this with the intent that he is going to present a realist thesis on God. And although I have more sympathy for arguments that come from a via negativa (a negation of talking about the attributes of God) and am described variously by many as an anti-realist, I must confess that I enjoyed Harries arguments and style of writing.

He begins by exploring the character of God. What type of a person or being is he? Interestingly he is not concerned with obscure theological points (like how many angels can dance on a pinhead) but with human projections of divinity. He argues quite sympathetically that one of the prevailing themes in modern secularism and irreligiosity is liberation from an oppressive judgemental and rule-weilding God. And then goes on to propose that the projection of the divinity that we make (as reflected in art, prayer and theological themes) changes with society. Thus at different stages of history God the creator dominates moreso than God the judge etc. An example he gives is the Medieval triumphalism of God the King - an image that has less impact, significance and relevance to the modern mind.

This interesting chapter serves to illustrate that the conception of God is multifaceted as indeed is our experience of religion. And thus it is a reminder both to the individual believer, to the unbeliever who has left religion and to the religious institution itself that theistic-themes need to be constantly re-explored, re-invigorated and re-described.

Over a series of posts I will continue this review focusing on the various themes that Harries presents, and particularly at those themes that are of interest to this blog, and finish with some of my concluding thoughts.

Part 2 will deal with belief and disbelief, specifically with attempts to argue from design, and the psychology of belief and disbelief and its irrelevance to the notion of “proof”.

Part 3 will explore a postmodern analysis of faith.

Part 4 will deal with talking about that which we call “soul”, existential fulfilment of our lives here and now, and miracles and the laws of nature.

Part 5 will explore rationalism, the nature of scientific proof, relatvism, the eschatology of genuine “truth” with regards certain philosophical speculations and an apologetic for Christian Rationalism. Plus some concluding notes from me.

More links from the Only a Game blog where a series of reviews of Charles Taylors “A Secular Age” has been posted.

Here are the links to parts 5 & 6 which cover “The Nova Effect” a theory defining secularism as spiritual pluralism and “Religion Today” (speaks for itself).

Well worth a read. Charles Taylor is a very unconventional theistic philosopher and provides a sensible rationale for the cohabitation of the varieties of religious belief alongside and within secularism.

Carrying on from a previous post which linked to the “Only A Game” Blog and its fascinating series of posted reviews on Charles Taylor’s “A Secular Age” - here is Part 4 “Religion” versus “Science” - It is in brief a description of the false dichotomy that the above phrase engenders not to mention the partisan psychology of many of its adherents.

Well worth a read.

I have recently finished reading The God Delusion. I have complicated feeling about the book. On one hand it is well written with interesting anecdotes. On the other hand it does appear to be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

The book could perhaps be shorter if this argument was more focused rather than attack every aspect of religion. An example is the argument “because we cannot explain X, god did it.” Dawkins first points out that this is not logically valid but then goes about explaining X with X in this case being complexity of life. This causes Dawkins’s critics to attack evolution but this distraction causes the invalid argument criticism to be forgotten.

The writing style is aimed at a general reader which necessarily involves some simplification of the arguments. I don’t think much is lost in the simplification but it does annoy philosophers. Most of the arguments are taken from Hume, Epicurus, etc so there is nothing new. What Dawkins brings to the debate is to contemporise them. Interestingly, there is very little overlap between Dawkins and Nietzsche although they have similar goals. Nietzsche would have blasted Dawkins’s humanism.

Dawkins has become infamous for his views on the non-existence of God. I feel I should mention the common criticism and note that they are wide of the mark. For those who criticize Dawkins for simply expressing his opinion, this hardly seems compatible with modern (free speech) or biblical (turn the other cheek) ethical standards. Others assume criticism of religion is the same as calling for its eradication. Dawkins does not calls for this in the book. Those that call Dawkins’s position a “religion”, a faith or an indoctrination method are usually committing ad hominem tu quoque. And finally a common criticism against Dawkins is agnosticism causes evil actions. I have not heard any valid causal connection between the two and it is a non sequitur as it stands. I suggest anyone trying to read the book to ignore previous views, either for or against.

He makes a good point on the source of morality in religion and almost taken from the pages of modern philosophy. Most religious people interpret religious texts to find a moral system. The literalists have an untenable position due to inconsistencies in the text. But what do we use to guide interpretation? Dawkins argues this interpretation must necessarily come from outside scripture. This undermines any claim that morality comes from holy books and puts religious morality on the same level as secular morality.

He also cites studies that different cultures have an instinctive grasp of a common morality. Reading between the lines, it is almost like calling for that to be the basis of morality. This reminds me of Hume’s attempt at founding morality on empirical observation. This approach to morality is incomplete since it only addresses morality when everyone is in agreement with moral law. For novel moral questions, our instinct is often silent.

Dawkins has no time for agnosticism. He distinguishes between two types of agnosticism. For the first type (which he calls Permanent Agnosticism in Principle) is a deistic God beyond the reach of evidence. He seems dismissive of this position and treats it as similar to ignosticism (the concept of God is meaningless). It is difficult to fathom Dawkin’s argument on this point. This brand of agnosticism is perhaps a distant relative of a postmodern God (in that the significance of God comes from the believer rather than from an objective source). The second type of agnosticism (Temporary Agnosticism in Practice) treats God as being inside and part of nature (an empirical hypothesis). Dawkins dismisses TAP because, in his view, the empirical evidence implies that there is no God. Before the postmodernists object to this argument, remember that most religious people believe God is very real and capable of physical manifestation. Dawkins’s book explicitly does not address Deism, Pantheonism, Buddhism or any similar world view. His argument is against the mainstream God of Abraham.

The aim of the book takes a controversial stance in today’s “tolerant” society. Dawkins sets out to deconvert believers whose belief is wavering. He recognises that it is impossible to deconvert a firm believer using rational argument and this is not his aim. The second and perhaps more difficult point is he equates religious instruction of children to child abuse. He argues that children never had a chance to make a free and informed decision to belong to religion. Children should therefore be protected from their parents. Liberals should note that an outside agency disrupting a family has a certain precedence; we allow the state to interfere with family affairs. But Dawkins assumes that free choice in belief is possible and I am not sure if that is true! When I child is part of a family, the teaching of some moral system is unavoidable. Independent thought can be encouraged but at some point this is oxymoronic - a young adult is told to have original thought and freedom. To obey this instruction is then not free or original! I find it difficult to imagine a society in which children are protected from the religion of their parents. The alternative is for parents to voluntarily not teach religion until early adulthood. I doubt many religions would agree to that constraint.

A final note: attaching the labels “militant”, “religious” or “fundamentalist” to Dawkins is ad hominem. If an argument is to be made against his religious position, please people, address his argument directly and don’t go after the man. It annoys me when implicit atheists (”the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it”) are grouped with other variants of atheism. The absence of belief is obviously not a type of religion or fundamentalism.

Anti Citizen One

Over on the “Only a Game” blog there is an interesting series of reviews on Charles “Chuck” Taylor’s latest book “A Secular Age”.

Charles Taylor is considered possibly the greatest living philosopher in the english speaking world. I must admit rather shamefully to not having heard of him until recently. He is an interesting guy and is in many respects an intellectual descendent of Wittgenstein.

A practising Catholic he nonetheless holds views that are a very unconventional fit to what most people expect a Catholic to be. He is clearly an original thinker. His latest book “A Secular Age” charts the historical development of religion in the west leading up to and including secularism. His study focuses on how society has undergone the transition from a time when it was virtually impossible not to believe in God to a time where even  those of the strongest and most determined faith accept that their is but one of many options available to them.

Rather than post a copy of somebody elses review (I haven’t read the book yet) I thought i’d just link to them. It makes interesting reading and the book is top of my wishlist. It is a serial review - here are the first three in the series:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

On the same blog an excellent (though sarcastic) post on the horrors of a “science pope” (warning may contain Feyerabend).