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Saving God: Religion after Idolatry

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A friend of mine suggested Johnston to me after I told him how I was converted to atheism by reading the likes of Dawkins, Harris, etc. Now I see why he did after having read it a few weeks back since he addresses them as naive...representing the 'new atheism' but recycling old arguments and holding an ignorant view of 'religion'; a version of religion which Johnston calls 'idolatry'. He condemns all the major monotheisms as idolatrous because they incorporate to some degree an element of superstition in the form of supernaturalism. He instead advocates a 'religious naturalism'. He elaborates this as panentheism (not 'pantheism', but similar): 'It is by encouraging its adherents to attend to the self-disclosure of Being rather than placate another god, that panentheism distinguishes itself from the idolatrous religions.' [p. 125] In his view there are no random incursions into the natural realm made inexplicably by nonmaterial beings. This 'legitimate naturalism' means just that there are no 'gods of the gaps'. The 'doings' of non-spatiotemporal entities have their own nomology that works in and through the physical world. This doesn't mean that there is only physical reality, but that beyond it is 'the realm of sense, the realm of that in virtue of which things are intelligible.' [p. 127] Chapters 3 and 8 and 11 are among the most important.

There are probably many things to find disagreeable with his thesis, but I think it's something worth looking into, especially for 'Richard-Dawkins-rules!' kinds of atheists. The sequel, 'Surviving Death', is probably worth a try after reading this too.

Johnston constructs an interesting if idiosyncratic argument which arrives at a Spinoza-like destination. Johnston is a philosopher at Princeton; this work, however, is not a philosophy book per se, but an extended essay (with some philosophical and theological elements). In it, Johnston's goal is to try to criticize traditional religions on their own terms and see where this leads him. He assumes there is a God (a "highest one") worthy of our fealty and the source of a path toward some kind of salvation. He then wants to strip away everything from traditional religious practice which can be criticized as arbitrary, idolatrous, or inappropriately focused on ego or worldly interests. He finds this eliminates supernatural entities and interventions, idiosyncratic historical trappings, the afterlife, and on and on. What's left is a panentheistic vision of reality. This is a provocative and interesting book. (To a previous reviewer's point, it's not a very easy read, but if you have read some academic philosophy and theology, I think you're OK).

Mark Johnston reveals himself to be a brilliant philosopher in this very unique and spirited critique of religion. He sets forth a thoroughgoing religious naturalism that leads to a quite original conception of the Divine, which is termed panentheism. I am no theologian myself, and while I gather that the term "panentheism" itself is not new, and Johnston seems to arrive at a place that is very reminiscent of Heidegger and Tillich in many respects, what sets this book apart for me is the quality of the philosophical argument. He is obviously a master of the philosophical canon, not only able to bring to bear themes from nearly every branch of philosophy, but also able to radically break from the philosophical traditions when he feels it is warranted. Johnston also has an uncanny ability to find exactly the right way to precisely phrase a philosophical view or objection, even when dealing with very abstract concepts. Throughout, the writing is lively and fresh, and the arguments are continually surprising and insightful.

Many without philosophical training may find sections of the book tough going, even though the book does not aspire to full philosophical rigor and Johnston tries to avoid jargon. However, for those with some background I would hold this up as a paragon of style. Even if you don't agree with the overall conclusions of the book, there are valuable insights to be gained in every chapter. I myself found much of it quite compelling and plan to re-read many chapters in it.

My philosophy professor recommended Johnston's books to me. I'll try not to repeat what the others below have already pointed out.

"Saving God" really is a provocative book, filled with arguments that are not exhaustive, but do get very important points across about his "ban on religious idolatry" with the space provided him. The majority of his chapters are fairly accessible, however, the remaining display deep "philosophical trench-warfare" (Ch. 9) as Johnston puts it. These can be very challenging to those who are not familiar with philosophical argumentation, religion itself, and philosophy of mind, in order to take out the very most of the book -- but if not, my advice is to just read carefully, and take your time rereading paragraphs in order to fully grasp the magnitude of his chapters. The book really brought out many hidden aspects of my own philosophical theology, which I suspect would also happen of anyone whose understanding of God is in a deism-type of way. In hindsight, I wondered if the traditional religious would find any of his argumentation "coherent" due to the radical transformation that is Johnston's naturalistic-theological conclusion. One reviewer below said it did little to save his concept of God, and in many ways, that's the point. Johnston shows that this panentheism gives us no type of personal or anthropomorphic-conscious being to placate, no afterlife as a sort of bribe or reason to be virtuous, no "spiritual materialism" (selfish hopes and prayers to be materialized by God) --no supernaturalism. Instead, we have "The Highest One = the outpouring of Being by way of its exemplification in ordinary existents for the sake of the self-disclosure of being". Hence Johnston's conclusion and interpretation of Jesus' life, mission and message as an exemplification of true agape, selfless-love.

Mark Johnston's book "Saving God: Religion after Idolatry" is a critique of the idolatrous notions of God which many believers give credence to because of personal convenience for "spiritual materialism". According to Johnston, God is someone believers worship in order to satisfy their desires and aspirations, which amounts to "spiritual materialism" in which the goal of worshipping God is hedonism. What is also problematic in the Judea-Christian culture is that believers have the tendency to anthropomorphize God into a being that literally posses qualities that resemble human psychological traits (Anger, Jealousy, Regret, Love, etc). This popular view of God, thus, is no different from idolatry since the pagans have also had anthropomorphized deities whom they worship as a way to bargain for their personal interest.

Johnston critique's the "idolatrous" or supernatural view of God in favor of the panentheistic notion of God as "Being-Itself" or "Existence" from which all existences flow from to manifest the ultimate existence. God, in the Tillichian sense, is the Ground of Being for Johnston. Such a God is not only a source of existence, but also a source of transformation for the believers who desire to transform their lives rather than fulfilling their hedonistic pleasures. Johnston's view of God was in part influenced by Aquinas, whom most scholars of medieval philosophy would not regard as Panentheistic (John Dun Scottus, however, could be panentheistic).

While Johnston rightly criticizes the "spiritual materialism" in conjunction with the anthropomorphic view of God that many believers (though not all) cherish, Johnston seems to assume that the problem would vanish if believers were to believe in the panentheistic view of God. Why is this so? Augustine, Aquinas, John Dun Scottus, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swineburne, Charles Hartshorne, Hegel, Spinoza, and other philosophers and theologians from Classical Theism (including Medieval philosophy) to Modern Theism (including Process Theology of Alfred-Whitehead) have proposed variety of views of God that could arguably be coherent (this could be disputable though). Why believe in Johnston's God rather than other notions of God espoused by different philosophers and theologians? Furthermore, many of these believers make similar claims: my God guarantees a transformative spiritual life. So, the reason to believe in Johnston's God cannot be because of spiritual transformation because other theistic philosophers and theologians make similar claims.

Johnston's argument that Panentheism is consistent with Naturalism (more speficially Methodological Naturalism) is not very convincing. The whole point of methodological naturalism is to postulate any hypothesis or theories that can help explain variety of the phenomena in the natural world, and such hypothesis or theory has to be both testable and falsifiable. Johnston's Panentheism maybe consistent with Methodological Naturalism, but such consistency from the perspective of Methodological Naturalism (or Naturalism as a whole) may be deemed superfluous and unhelpful since such panentheistic being could be easily construed as unfalsifiable ad hoc postulate that cannot be tested.

Johnston went in the right direction as he critiques on anthropomorphism of God and spiritual materialism, and the idolatrous implications of these tendencies of many believers; to believe in a cosmic sky-father who interferes with human affairs to make their lives more fascinating and happier is a fairly idolatrous and anthropomorphic belief, especially when the Abrahamic God in the old-testament displays a lot of human-like qualities in regards to attitude and emotions. His phenomenological analysis of God is also interesting. Despite these positive assets to this book, Johnston's panentheistic notion of God is merely a belief as any other beliefs to an outsider like me.

An earlier reviewer commented that this book was accessible to the general reader. I am no raging intellectual, but I have a decent vocabulary and a reasonable sense of exposition, judgement, and how one reaches a conclusion. If I had PhDs in philosophy and theology, I might have more understanding of the author's intent and argument. As it was, I found the book obtuse, the logic fuzzy, much of the content irrelevant to what I hoped was the intented theme, and the feeling that this book did little to "save God" for me.