Customer Reviews

God and Religion in the Postmodern World: Essays in Postmodern Theology (Suny Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought)

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a fascinating and stimulating book that deserves a careful reading. I was continually amazed with the ease that Griffin summarized centuries of scientific, philosophical, and theological development and then highlighted the connecting and diverging conceptual threads. If only as a history of ideas, Griffin's book deserves a place on your shelf. But he goes further and proposes a worldview that he claims is true to the methods of science (i.e. experience and reason) and serves as a modern day bridge to the religious concepts of naturalistic theism, soul, afterlife, and fully human ethics. In this effort, he relies heavily on the work of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Harthshorne.

Griffin points out what he calls the insuperable problems of the two most dominant worldviews since the Enlightenment, i.e. dualism and materialism. As for dualism, one is left with two worlds, one of matter and the other of mind (spirit, soul), and no reasonable explanation as to how they could interact (p. 22). One is also left with an omnipotent, benevolent, God and the very real human experience of evil. Historically, these problems lead to a rejection of dualism and the emergence of materialism. This worldview either fully rejects the reality of the mind, or relegates it to a mere epiphenomenona. Unfortunately, materialism leaves one denying the fundamental reality of one's own experiences, a contradiction unacceptable to an open-minded empiricism. Finding both of these worldviews as fatally flawed, Griffin moves to propose his postmodern vision.

The core of this vision lies in an ontology that he admits "boggles" the modern mind. (p. 63). He claims that all individual entities in the universe, be they humans, animals, plants, cells, molecules, or subatomic particles are experiential events (p. 24). This panexperientialism, or postmodern animism, provides all such entities a degree of freedom, self-determination, and creativity. From this foundation he develops his other concepts such as naturalistic theism (a view of God that is part of rather than separate from nature), the human soul, life after death, and ethical priorities.

Unfortunately, Griffin indicates that he "cannot take the time here to provide the evidence and arguments for this post modern starting point..." (p. 63). I wish he had taken the time so that this position could be more fully appreciated and credible. The arguments he does present include: 1) the extension of Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy from epistemology to ontology; 2) the unavoidable contradictions involved in dualism and materialism; 3) the direct experience of God through prehension; and 4) evidence from parapsychology. Had Griffin developed each of these arguments further, the postmodern worldview he presents may have been more compelling. However, absent further development, these arguments are far from convincing and the conundrums he presents susceptible to alternative solutions or a simple declaration that we are still seeking answers. It is also unclear how the hypothesis of panexperientialism could be tested and thus meet the fundamental requirement of science.

In order to get a better grasp of what modern physics involves, I visited the website of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (www.fnal.gov). This site is full of current information regarding Quantum Mechanics and is written for the educated layman. The picture of modern physics presented at this site is hardly mechanistic or Newtonian. It is full of uncertainty and concepts (e.g. quarks, leptons, photons, fermions, anitfermions, antiparticles, antimatter, dark matter, positrons, hadrons, bosons, neutrinos, and baryons, to name just a few) that also boggle the mind.

Unfortunately, Griffin does not even attempt a preliminary sketch of the Standard Model, i.e. the consensus worldview of modern physics, let alone its more esoteric cousins such as Super String Theory. Without a careful examination of these models, it seems premature to introduce the concepts of experience and creativity to Quantum Mechanics. One might even suggest that such a venture fails to give appropriate intellectual respect and deference to the work of modern scientists. There may be a place for panexperientialism in modern physics, but it may also be unnecessary, unhelpful, distracting, or even misleading. The truth is in the details and Griffin has failed to make his case at this level.

When reading Griffin I was reminded of a comment John Dominick Crossan made regarding the study of the historical Jesus. He said that it "was a safe place for one to do theology and call it history, to do autobiography and call it biography". It the case of this book, I came away with the distinct impression that Griffin was doing philosophy and calling it science, doing theology and calling it physics. Similarly, I was reminded of Marcus Borg's comment that, "In order to make the claim of history, you must do the work of history". What is true for history is equally true for physics, and Griffin has not done the work of physics.

In conclusion, I would love to seen a close collaboration and real dialogue and between physicists and postmodern philosophers/theologians such as Griffin. Absent that, it seems prudent to leave physics with the physicists. If philosophers and theologians intend to ground their worldviews in modern physics, then they need to do it in a more complete, detailed, and comprehensive way.

Creb

Yet another well-argued philosophical masterpiece from one of the world's leading Process Theologians, David Ray Griffin. The other reviewer, Andrew Ng, is obviously not familiar with the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, nor with the variety of pre-modern, modern and postmodern theological views. If he were, he would realize that Process Thought is a practical, amazingly thorough, philosophically and ethically sound understanding of God and the world, that's based not on some "ideal", fantasy world, but on the ACTUAL WORLD AS WE EXPERIENCE IT. I've been a "student" of Process Thought for nearly 10 years now, and have yet to find a better, more holistic model of reality.

I Highly recommended this,as well as Griffin's other books, and books by John B. Cobb, Jr, Marjorie Suchocki, and Ken Wilber.

Yet another well-argued philosophical masterpiece from one of the world's leading Process Theologians, David Ray Griffin. The other reviewer, Andrew Ng, is obviously not familiar with the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, nor with the variety of pre-modern, modern and postmodern theological views. If he were, he would realize that Process Thought is a practical, amazingly thorough, philosophically and ethically sound understanding of God and the world, that's based not on some "ideal", fantasy world, but on the ACTUAL WORLD AS WE EXPERIENCE IT. I've been a "student" of Process Thought for nearly 10 years now, and have yet to find a better, more holistic model of reality.

I Highly recommended this,as well as Griffin's other books, and books by John B. Cobb, Jr, Marjorie Suchocki, and Ken Wilber.

I read this book hoping to understand the relationship between religion and contemporary worldview a little better, and found myself thoroughly disappointed. The author, despite stating that there is overlapping of ideas between/amongst the chapters, has done little to overcome this - chapters repeat themselves too frequently, and an idea is over-developed to breaking point that one seems to be reading the same old thing all over again with each new chapter. The author also tries too hard to marry religious philosophy and contemporary worldview under his all conclusive concept of `creativity', hence reducing everything living to an extension and expression of creativity. For the author, God is Creativity, who functions as a persuader of, and is persuaded by, other life-forms' creativity - persuasion being the `isness' of existence. This is an interesting concept, but a reader will soon realise that the writer is merely using a lot of jargon to propose his brand of pseudo-pantheism (or, as he calls it, panentheism). Hence, existence is merely the creative force of every living entity (which includes atoms and molecules - yes, even these are living, experiential entities)to connect with the past and shape the future - the `God is Nature, Nature is God' idea. But again, even without God, the world would still carry on rather well if we would follow the book's proposition - after all, everything is essentially creative, able to connect with its past and mould its future, and God is just another, albeit greater, creative being. The author stresses the necessity of God but, unfortunately, reduces God to just one of the many creative entities. But my greatest quarrel with this book, as mentioned earlier, is its repetitiveness, and by repeating this again, you know how annoying it would get.