4.0 out of 5 stars
middle ground between faith and skepticism, October 21, 2011
Christopher Hitchens, in a 2005 essay on the strangely unbelieving faith of American founding father Benjamin Franklin, quotes Franklin's observation that he acquired the habit of disputation from his father's Books of Disputes about Religion. Franklin observes that "Persons of Good Sense seldom fall into this habit, except lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinborough." (Hitchens, Arguably, p22)
One such Edinburgh University man, a Professor of Divinity no less, has given us a fine articulation of a reasoned response to the disputes about religion prompted in large part by Hitchens. Addressing themes including evolution, the status of belief, the social function of religion, and different ways we read texts, Professor David Fergusson provides a useful, if not entirely persuasive, conversational tour of some key points in the debate. The `New Atheism' presents a reactive confident rage at the continued prevalence of religion, expressing a modern mindset whose assumptions are not always explicit, and whose arguments provide an important framework for public dialogue. Bringing the assumptions that support these arguments into focus is essential for progress in the conversation.
Hitchens, always the provocateur, suggests that Benjamin Franklin intentionally ridiculed theistic views. Clearly aiming to irritate those who prefer the myth of the gentle piety of the Founding Fathers, Hitchens is most deliberate, arguing that the unmasking of the sinuous intent of old Ben is a sign of the growing movement of atheism in modern times. Casting off the light disguise of religious language that it often had to wear when the church was more powerful, the new atheism has powerful roots in the deist views of the scientific enlightenment. In the last decade the former polite concealment has been put into stark public focus, especially in books such as Hitchens' full frontal attacks on religion as poison, and Richard Dawkins' suggestions that faith is inherently blind and that religion is an obsolete and dangerous delusion.
The fact that theologians now feel compelled to respond to the agenda set by scientists, especially Dawkins, shows how the ground has shifted for religious debate. And Fergusson responds well, with an informed and well reasoned defense of faith. Yet one comes away with the sense that his defense is on thin ice, relying too much on the attitude of Gibbon's Roman magistrate who found all religions equally useful. Fergusson's effective demonstration that the modern secularization thesis lacks psychological depth does not suffice to show that any religious ideas are true, only that they remain adaptive and convenient. Celebrating TS Eliot's observation of the continued adaptability of religion is one thing, but proving the utility of religion does not address its truth.
The truth of religious claims is at the centre of the debate. Secularisation, as proposed by key moderns such as Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, assumes that progress towards a more reasonable world must involve disenchantment, a recognition that previous metaphysical frameworks are entirely false. But the rejoinder can be made that an enchanted sense of human relation to ultimate reality is plausibly essential to authentic life, and does not necessarily require belief in supernatural miraculous entities. The truth of Biblical claims seems to rest more in allegory than in history.
It seems rather arrogant for atheists to suggest that we can dispense with mystery, and Fergusson rightly argues that the atheist view that society can flourish without religion remains an untested article of faith. Against this new atheist dogma, Fergusson proposes a need for understanding of nature, of significance, and of our deepest convictions, suggesting that while atheism may have a sound understanding of nature, it skates over basic questions of how human life relates to the natural universe through moral and symbolic commitment.
The failure of atheist critique to address the utility of religion in ethical formation and binding of community illustrates that both sides in this debate have presuppositions that they struggle to examine. Fergusson ably shows that the quiet normal functioning of faith is highly virtuous, providing good social services, ethical teaching and basis for community life. After all, even Dawkins enjoys Christmas carols, and the wicked Mr Hitchens celebrates the literary beauty of the Authorised Version of the Bible. But the nagging doubt here, in a scientific age, remains that this rearguard action on behalf of faith still clings to a supernatural epistemology that grows steadily more unconvincing.
Science demands evidence, but religion is more about belonging to a community. Customs, rituals, ethical commitments and celebration of festivals are just as much a part of religious identity as assent to propositions (p36). With an evocative image from the celebrated scientist Stephen Jay Gould, Fergusson suggests there is a `complex fractal interdigitation' between religious and scientific visions of reality (p44). And yet this convenient recourse to the `live and let live' idea of `non overlapping magisteria' begs the question of the evidentiary basis of faith, and of the risks inherent in believing things that are not true. Do not the cultural Christians whom Fergusson welcomes into the fold require a truth to live by?
Fergusson attacks Hitchens for flirting with the idea that Biblical inconsistency suggests Jesus Christ did not exist, .and points out that the Gospels give us a mandate for allegorical interpretation, for example with Christ's respectful critique of Mosaic Law. He approves of Michael Buckley's effort to recast the debate as one not of cosmology, but of experience, specifically experience of "Jesus as the embodied presence of God" (p.30). But these arguments put Fergusson's personal commitments on display, revealing his evasion of the problem of evidence.
There is no clear evidence of any belief in a literal historical Jesus Christ in the first Christian century, even in the Epistles of Paul. This shocking lacuna in Christian origins, analyzed in books such as Jesus Neither God Nor Man by Earl Doherty, justifies doubt about Christian claims about the basis of their faith. Especially, the absence of evidence justifies doubt regarding the role of Christ as founder, whose historical circumstances are never demonstrably mentioned before the second century, generations after the claimed events of Bethlehem and Calvary. Yet Fergusson ignores this historical debate about evidence, preferring instead to call the Exodus and the story of Jesus "direct witness to the events of divine self disclosure" (p163).
Fergusson proposes the valuable principle that dialogue is only possible at the middle ground between faith and skepticism, since those at the extremes of this spectrum are more interested in preaching than learning. From a rational point of view, this approach to conversation suggests that the assumption that allegorical meaning may be found within traditional miraculous and supernatural claims is an important methodological principle in rehabilitating religion. It should be accepted that such discussion will often be confronting for the assumptions brought to the table by representatives of both faith and reason, in shared efforts to find consensus on the meaning of doctrines that hold a lot of cultural baggage. There are many surprises in store for those who wish to pursue an honest analysis of how Christian faith has evolved over its long history.
Although accepting Darwinian evolution, Fergusson makes the perceptive observation that analysis of the evolution of faith does not generally engage well with the question of the legitimacy and adaptability of contemporary religion. Scientists tend to think that a proof of the error of traditional claims, whether on cosmology, teleology or history, should result in the withering away of religion. Noting that John Polkinghorne has rightly argued that explanations of cultural meaning cannot be reduced to physical mechanisms alone, Fergusson points out that understanding the genesis and history of cultural practices does not by itself determine how we should respond to those practices today. For example science alone can barely begin to assess the value of sacraments such as baptism and eucharist, or practices such as worship and prayer.
However, Fergusson's discussion of cultural evolution opens more questions than it answers. This is especially the case in his account of Dawkins' concept of the meme as a unit of cultural evolution. Fergusson seems to detect a knock-down argument in his observation that the spread of science should be just as memetic as the spread of religion. But this is no refutation at all. Memetics is the study of evolutionary causality in cultural systems, on the hypothesis that cultural change occurs by the same law of cumulative adaptation as genetic evolution. Pointing out that a meme is not a physical object is rather like showing that love or justice are not physical objects.
The theory of memes says little more than that culture builds on precedent, with successful changes occurring when a practice is more adapted to its circumstances, just as more adaptive genes are those that prove more fecund, durable and stable in the struggle for existence. Memetic theory provides a powerful explanation of why false ideas persist, but it also helps to explain the historical evolution of successful true ideas, including those within science, thereby accounting for both the rational and the irrational factors in what people think. Observing that ideas mutate like viruses does not detract from the truth of ideas, in view of the expectation that true ideas should eventually prove most adaptive within the evolutionary contest. An emotional distaste for the idea of memes as `viruses of the mind' ignores how viruses are among the most hardy of living entities, continually adapting to new circumstances, and in fact bearing a strong analogy to the place of religion within culture.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
review of Faith and its critics, July 15, 2010
This review is from: Faith and Its Critics: A Conversation (Gifford Lectures) (Hardcover)
David Fergusson's Faith and its critics is a deep book that attempts to plumb the depths of the contention between neo-Darwinism/atheism and historic Christianity by comparing the two world views and the various arguments of the two. This is probably not a book for everyman, but one that well read pastors and deep thinkers can read and ruminate over. I personally thought the book was on the intellectual side, and the discussion one that seemed to allow for much of Darwinian evolution theory to be the one espoused over the creative biblical account of the world. Fergusson too easily dismisses creation science with virtually no input from the likes of Dr Henry Morris, Ravi Zacharias, Norman Geisler or other well credentialed modern scientists let alone referring to Newton, Pascal et al who were all creationists and who can scientifically validate a biblical account of creation and a young earth. I encourage thinkers to read this book and ponder the information herein, and to dialogue with him-he is a pretty brilliant mind and a great heart for the things of God.
Fergusson makes many excellent points in the book, one of which is crucial with regard to understanding Darwin. He states that Darwin really changed in his faith because of the death of his young daughter, which caused many questions to occur in his faith-great point. Question: where was the church in his time of need? He is correct to say that we must engage in fruitful dialogue with atheist/agnostics to hear their side and to defend our historic faith reasonably. As a teacher in a secular college of critical reasoning and logic, speech and other classes, I always seek to engage an increasingly faithless generation. Many youngsters in the States see no reason for any faith and believe atheism to be foolish and demands more faith the religious people have. Buy and enjoy the book.
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