John Caputo: Towards a Radical Theology, Not a Radical Atheism: A Review of Modern Atheism, Atheology and Divine Inexistence

Christopher Watkin

Difficult Atheism: Post-Theological Thinking in Alain Badiou, Jean-Luc Nancy and Quentin Meillassoux

Published: June 07, 2012

Christopher Watkin, Difficult Atheism: Post-Theological Thinking in Alain Badiou, Jean-Luc Nancy and Quentin Meillassoux, Edinburgh University Press, 2011, 281pp., $105.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780748640577.

Reviewed by John D. Caputo, Syracuse University and Villanova University

http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/31269-difficult-atheism-post-theological-thinking-in-alain-badiou-jean-luc-nancy-and-quentin-meillassoux/

Being an "atheist" is not a simple matter. When Derrida says that there are "theological prejudices" imbedded in "metaphysics in its entirety, even when it professes to be atheistic", he means that when metaphysics poses as the supreme authority that pronounces "there is no God," it simply reenacts the role of God. It leaves the "center" standing and reoccupies it with other metaphysical pretenders to the throne: Man, History, Science, Reason, any version of Žižek's "Big Other." That is nothing more than a palace coup that leaves the palace system standing.

Such atheism, which a lot of us would call "modernist," Watkin says, "imitates" theism and is "parasitic" on the very framework it purports to negate. Atheism, he argues, is "difficult," a difficulty Nietzsche proposed to meet when he said "God is dead," where "God" meant not just the Deity but the whole system of "values," of "truth" and the "good," from Plato to the present, every attempt to establish a center, a foundation of knowledge and morals, including modern physics, which is also an "interpretation." Watkin thinks this atheism is exposed to a "difficulty" of its own, which he calls its "ascetic" approach, because it calls upon us to make do with the resulting debris or "residue" of lost foundations (the "death of God"), to live with finitude and imperfection, giving up on a satisfying transcendence, and putting up with an unsatisfying immanence (133). It does not really annul the place of God but merely leaves it empty (6-7), like Camus' "absurd man" shaking his fist at the void. This is an atheism that regrets that it is right.

The ascetic version faces a further difficulty: once we undermine foundations, we have undermined any foundational argument against the old God. That binds the hands of atheism, preventing any knock-out atheistic blow, thereby leaving the barn door open to religious faith. Kant was being a perfect Pauline-Lutheran Protestant when he said that he found it necessary to delimit knowledge in order to make room for faith. The "difficulty," in short, is that atheism needs foundationalism to cut off the escape route of faith, but foundationalism reenacts and repeats theism. Either concede our irreducible finitude, which leaves the infinite inaccessible and a possible object of faith, or somehow scramble over to the side of the infinite and cut off the escape route of faith, which runs the opposite risk of playing God. That explains "post-secularism," the postmodern "return of religion": once modernity is delimited and the metaphysical gunfire over God subsides, a postmodern version of classical religious faith is free to raise its hoary head. This "colonisation" of modern atheism by religion has particularly gotten Watkin's goat (239).

Watkin proposes a way out of this dilemma -- if not, we will never be rid of religion and all its resulting woes -- under the name of what he calls a "post-theological integration." This means, in Lyotard's words, inventing a new ("post-theological") game and not being content with a new move in the age-old game (theism versus atheism). Is there a way to think "after God" or "without God" that does not act as if it is God (parasitism), while not giving up on the ideas of truth and justice (asceticism), meaning that it can be "integrated" with ideas normally associated with God? (13) A lot depends on what Watkin means by "integration," which runs its own risk of aggression and colonization -- playing with religion and explaining it to itself. Philosophy (father) knows best, knows better than religion what religion is talking about. Philosophy knows that things would be "better" -- it's the "consensus" (239) -- "without" God and religion. A lot also depends on "without," a venerable word of Meister Eckhart's Latin (sine) and German (ohne) vocabulary, meditated upon at length by Heidegger and Derrida (sans). When it comes to being an atheist, who is without sin (sine peccato, anamartetos)?

Watkin takes up Alain Badiou ("axiomatic atheism"), Jean-Luc Nancy ("atheology") and Quentin Meillassoux ("divine inexistence"), each of whom he thinks has just such a post-theological project in mind. The French focus omits not only Nietzsche but also Žižek, but it has the advantage of including Nancy -- instead of simply writing off deconstruction as (like God) dead and restricting the debate to the new or "speculative" realists -- along with a brief but illuminating discussion of Jean-Luc Marion. The problem is interesting, the question is very nicely framed, and the architecture of the book is impeccable (without sin). We can be especially grateful to Watkin for providing exemplary expositions of these authors, especially Nancy, an exceptionally elusive and allusive writer who requires a reading in French. The book is filled with subtle and complex commentaries to which no review can do justice. Difficult Atheism represents a sophisticated contribution to the debates that have arisen in the wake of the "theological turn", and it merits careful study by anyone interested in these issues.

Badiou's attack is directed against "ascetic" atheism, postmodern post-Kantian skeptics about "truth." His atheism is straightforward: theism is false; atheism is true. The dichotomy stands and one branch is broken off. By insisting upon our "finitude," the postmoderns allow the "infinite" (God, the One) to flourish like a poisonous mushroom in the dark soil of the "inaccessible." So Badiou reclaims the infinite for philosophy, stiffens the spines of the philosophers about truth, leaving the old God nowhere to hide while affirming truth and justice. Nothing is left over; nothing can escape the light of the Idea. This is done by invoking a specific version of set theory which wrests the infinite from the One of the Platonic-Christian tradition and transfers it to multiplicity. But, Watkin points out, Cantor was a Roman Catholic who distinguished a numerical infinity (the transfinite, quantitative multiplicity) from the "absolutely infinite" being of God (divine simplicity), which is neither numerically finite nor numerically infinite and as such the province of theology. There is nothing in mathematics which authorizes mathematics to speak about what is not mathematical to begin with. That is the very move Badiou wants to cut off. All Badiou can do with Cantor's distinction is to brush it off and declare "The One is not" an axiomatic decision (27-29). Ontology just is mathematics, adopting a posture often struck in Vatican encyclicals and in the Bible belt under the name of the "Word of God."

Nancy directs his attack against the sort of straightforward modernist or "imitative-parasitic" atheism we see in Badiou. As a deconstructionist, Nancy undercuts the "binary opposition" between theism and atheism (132), treating atheism as the flip side of onto-theo-logy. Theism and atheism are mirror images. He situates himself on the terrain of the "finite," which helps us avoid pretending that we are God, as Badiou has done. That is why Nancy speaks of a deconstructive "atheology," not "atheism." Nancy describes an infinite "open" which is only ever partially filled by any finite construction, an unbounded "sense" which cannot be saturated by any determinate "signification." There is no ahistorical arche or telos that shuts down or "axiomatizes" the open. The notion that something ahistorical breaks in upon the historical and henceforth changes everything -- the way the matheme ruptures the mytheme for Badiou -- is the very gesture of "Christianity," of the Incarnation, or what Nancy calls the "Christmas projection" (37). So it is Christianity that needs deconstruction.

But to deconstruct something is to open it up, not close it down. Deconstruction is un-closing, dis-enclosing. While Nancy's deconstruction of Christianity will give no comfort to the Vatican or Nashville, it will expose a sens deep within Christianity that "Christianity" (a signification) tends to close off. As Derrida points out, that attaches hyperbolic importance to Christianity itself, culling the wheat from the chaff, the spirit from the dead letter. This is made clear by the history of Derrida's word déconstruction, which translates Heidegger's Destruktion, which in turn translates what Luther called the destructio of medieval metaphysical theology in order to recover the pristine heart of the New Testament, which itself translates apolo in I Cor 1:19, which translates Isaiah 29:14. Heidegger's Destruktion retrieves the truth (aletheia) in metaphysics from which metaphysics itself is barred. Watkin concludes that Nancy's deconstruction is "parasitic" upon Christianity and not genuinely post-theological (39-40). Neither Badiou nor Nancy escapes parasitism. Each one convicts the other.

But is not Nancy's "repetition" of Christianity without Christianity exactly what an "integration" ought to be? Might we not distinguish a flat-footed parasitism from an ironic, conscious and creative one? Is there not an illusion embedded in speaking too strongly of the "post"-theological as if the theological could be over and done with? We cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and create de novo. We begin where we are, with the languages and traditions we have inherited, which we seek to re-think and re-open. The idea is not to decontaminate ourselves from these traditions but to transform them, to recover what is going on in them, without being trapped by them. Sometimes Watkin speaks of the post-theological as if "God," "theology" and "religion" were like AIDS, and the post-theological question is how we wipe out this threat. The post-theological is said to "reoccupy" and "integrate" with theology in order to subvert it.

Is philosophy then aggression, a force of "occupation," a hostile military takeover which "exploits the resources" of religion (99)? That would succeed only in being "integrated" with theological imperialism! What is the difference between the "post-secular colonisation" of atheism and the "post-theological occupation" of theology -- other than whose side one is on? Or is philosophy a repetition that will always be hyperbolic about something -- otherwise it would be "ahistorical" -- writing sous rature, deploying paleologism and a logic of the sans (Derrida's religion sans religion), as Watkin explicitly points out (79-80)? That is a much more delicate operation than the one Watkin ascribes to Badiou -- as if religion were an object exposed to the light of the Idea and the "philosopher" were the "master" who can explain religion to itself, while mocking its self-understanding as a mere "fable." But any idea, "theological" or "post-theological," is at odds with itself and is moved by its own internal tensions. A deconstruction tracks the way things are always already invaded by their other, always divided internally, but it is not exploitation, aggression, occupation, a plundering of religion or the work of art -- merci à Dieu!

At this point, Watkin is convinced we have reached a draw: neither position has found its way clear to post-theology. Badiou makes a primal decision about the axiomatization of being, declaring that the One is not, which even if historically "motivated" is a contestable faith that mathematical thinking is "better." Nancy is likewise unable to escape the shadow of theology, distinguishing a determinate belief (croyance) in a determinate "principle" (or signification) from a deeper but divided faith (foi) (in sens). This faith is not opposed to reason but is a keeping faith with or being "true" (treu) to reason that supplements reason. Reason needs such faith in order to function, given its own insufficiency, so that reason is never more "reasonable" than when it recognizes that it needs the supplement of faith. A self-sufficient reason is idolatry; true reason is unclosed, incomplete, insufficient, exposed to faith (115-16). Nancy calls this "atheology," the affirmation of the unprogrammable, un-axiomatizable, sens of the "world." But this, Watkin thinks, only continues to privilege Christianity. Atheism may be not only difficult but "incompletable" (121), led back to a Gödelian place: atheism cannot complete itself (Badiou) without becoming inconsistent, and it cannot be consistent (Nancy) without being incomplete (123).

Enter Meillassoux, who claims to provide an atheism both consistent and complete. Using Badiou's critique of finitude, Meillassoux attacks Kantian "fideism" (denying knowledge to make room for faith) and gives philosophy unlimited authority over God, rationalizing revelation -- not eradicating it -- not unlike Spinoza or Hegel. Philosophy denies both the transcendent God of theism and the God-less immanence of atheism, but in its place it produces a new God of its own construction, an "inexistent" God. Philosophy is not experimental science, whose methodological limits (finitude) play into the hands of religious faith, but neither is it classical metaphysics, which posits a necessary being. Hence it assumes a "speculative" form which denies the assumption that we are forced to choose between the contingency of the many (postmodernism) and the necessity of the One (God) (metaphysics). Readers of theology will notice that "voluntarist" or "divine will" theology, God as necessary, transcendent and inscrutably free to alter the laws of nature and morality, does service for "God" at large for Meillassoux. The "speculative" position is to assert the necessity of contingency, the necessity that everything is contingent, which Meillassoux calls the principle of the "factial" (le factual). It cannot be that the contingency of things is itself contingent.

This principle is argued for by an odd sort of tables-turning method of "conversion" (162). A minus (reasoning to a necessary being falls into infinite regress, explaining one contingent thing by another) becomes a plus: this failure is a direct insight into the non-necessity of any one being and of the necessity of the contingency of every being, which eliminates the need for faith (146). Being unable to come up with a sufficient reason for any being is an insight into the impossibility that any particular being could be necessary (147). What's ultimately "wrong" with God for Meillassoux is that we are forbidden to ask where God came from. Or again: the "strong correlationists" maintain that reality could always be otherwise than the way we have constructed it in language or consciousness. That is not the skeptical relativism it wants to be, but an intuition that it is inescapably necessary that things could always be otherwise than they are.

Finally, his amazing reading of Hume: the inability to find the necessary relationship between the antecedent and the consequent is an intellectual insight into the real lack of causal necessity, thereby switching the "non-reason" from us (skepticism) to the things themselves (realism). Meillassoux is not saying that the natural world is chaotic but that it is subject to a non-observable (speculative) contingency (143). There are laws and regularities and even causal connections in nature, but they are all contingent. Gravity is a law, but it is not necessary. It is thinkable that tomorrow there will be no gravity. Chaos is disorder, but radical contingency is a "hyperchaos," meaning that disorder may be destroyed by order just as easily as order may be destroyed by disorder. From the principle of "insufficient reason" (there being no sufficient reason for any particular thing) we can conclude to the necessity of contingency (145) and to the principle of non-contradiction, for if a thing were both itself and its contradiction it would already be any "other" that it could become; it would then be an unchangeable and necessary being. But every being is contingent.

None of this means that Meillassoux is done with God. Far from it -- he is the most "aggressive" (231-32) of all when it comes to post-theological "integration." After dispensing with the God of the ontological argument, God as an ens necessarium, it remains possible that God might happen to come about, even if God happens not to exist now. God's current inexistence does not exclude a possible future existence. Indeed, it is absolutely necessary that God (like everything else currently inexistent) might possibly exist later on. Why Meillassoux would ever be led to say such a thing -- he is nothing if not bold -- brings us to the question of justice, the other idea (along with truth) with which post-theology wants to "integrate itself," and to the age-old problem of evil. Justice demands we supersede both classical theism (because it affirms a God who permits the worst injustices) and classical atheism (because it allows the injustice done to the dead to go unrepaired) by positing the hope for the possible emergence in the future of a God who will raise the dead and reward them for their hitherto unrequited suffering by way of a Christ-like figure called the "Child of Man." Like an odd Hegelian, Meillassoux wants to "occupy" everything that (the Christian) religion has to say! That yields a "philosophical divine" (207), a God, religion and resurrection in which we may hope strictly within the limits of reason alone, of the principle of necessary contingency.

Watkin thinks that Meillassoux's principle of the necessity of contingency undoes itself. Given the unbroken rule of contingency, any such necessity would have to be temporally qualified as "according to the presently prevailing standards of rationality" (151). Maybe tomorrow morning what is judged rational or just today will be judged irrational and unjust, while what is irrational and unjust will be judged rational and just. The very notions of thinking and rationality, of necessity and contingency are all contingent and subject to change in the future. If they are not, then they are necessary and exempt from the principle of the factial. Meillassoux either erects a God-like idol out of thinking and rationality (parasitic atheism) or requires an act of faith that reason will not mutate under the force of hyperchaos (ascetic atheism) (155).

In Nancy, justice comes down to a "call" that for Watkin is too weak to be effective and to be effective would require miming a divine injunction. Badiou tells us his view of justice is motivated by his personal experience of the events of May, 1968, which compares to his view that his axiomatic decision to say that ontology is mathematics is motivated by the demands of modernity; while biographically interesting, this lacks the universality politics demands. Badiou bases his atheism on an axiomatic decision; Nancy builds faith into the very idea of reason; and Meillassoux, resisting both moves, attempts a demonstration of his founding principle, but the demonstration requires faith. Taken together, all three thinkers posit an axiom, a call or an intuition in which we must just have faith (233-34), which are considered eo ipso "good" and are given a pass on having to further justify themselves. He concludes with Fichte's remark that the kind of philosophy one chooses depends on the kind of person one is. Philosophy always risks such circularity, which is the ultimate difficulty in becoming an atheist.

But what goes around comes around. Watkin worries that the "colonisation" of atheism by "post-secular" theology ends us up back in theology, not atheism. That is evidently bad because, well, atheism is "good." But what is so good about atheism? Why is atheism not just as good-and-bad as theology, where it all depends upon how theologians and atheists behave both as thinkers and social agents? Why should we seek a "post-theology" that purges both the imitation and the residue of theology from atheism? Because atheism is good and a radical clean-sweep atheism is even better. The "post" in Watkin's post-theology is like Žižek's reading of the Hegelian dialectic as a double no: atheism means no God; post-theology means no God, not even a trace of God.

But why is "post-secular" theology not "good?" It belongs to a progressive wing of theology eager to absorb the insights of radical thinkers from Nietzsche to Žižek in order to engage in serious self-criticism and to undermine the demonization of atheism by theology. If we criticize theologians for not reading such writers, are we then to criticize them when they do? Postmodern theology results in a searching criticism of the violence and fundamentalism of religion from within theology itself, which is vastly more effective than any external criticism of theology. If we test the idea on Watkin's terms, by its pay-off in terms of justice, post-secular theology enacts an auto-deconstruction of theological imperialism, militarism, patriarchy, racism, and homophobia, drawing upon a theology of peace and justice stretching from Amos to Martin Luther King (which is why religious people are so regularly found working among the most destitute people on earth) and calling down upon itself the fire of conservative religious authorities. If such theological thinking were the coin of the realm in religion today, religious violence would not be in the headlines.

That being said, I do in part share Watkin's concern with post-secular theology, although that may come as a surprise to him, since Watkin numbers me among the post-secularists he criticizes, which I attribute to a rather glancing look at my work. I regard the "post-Kantian" version of postmodern theology as an attenuated or abridged edition of postmodernism; it is good but it could be better. It regards postmodernism as the contemporary version of "apologetics," cutting off reductionistic critiques of religion and allowing classical religious orthodoxy to stand untouched. A more searching version of postmodern theory requires a more searching (and post-Hegelian) criticism of what is going on in religion and theology. That requires a careful historical and critical study of the Scriptures, of the history of theology and of what we are talking about when we westerners speak in Christian Latin of "religion." The result would take the form, in my view, of an exposition (an expounding and an exposing) of the "events" that take place in religion -- events of promising and hoping, giving and forgiving, mourning and recalling, justice and hospitality, and the like. It would expose a deeper "faith" (foi) which runs beneath the "confessional beliefs" (croyances), where both "theism" and "atheism" are treated as croyances, while faith has to do with a deep-set affirmation or desire of something we desire with a desire beyond desire, a desire that overtakes us all, theists, atheists or still trying to decide.

I think, and Watkin seems to agree, that there are no non-circular arguments against the existence of God, if by God we mean a being outside space and time. If that is what a radical atheism would mean, there is no such thing (243, n.3). What resources could we ever marshal to show what there is not in a world beyond space and time? If it is "difficult" enough to try to prove that something is there, it is even harder to prove there is not. But I do think that the good old God of St. Augustine and his two-worlds theory has run its course, that it has earned our "incredulity," to stick with Lyotard's precisely chosen word, an incredulity that is very often found among the theologians themselves. That, however, is a long way from giving up on God, or more precisely on the name (of) "God," or more precisely still the "events" that take place in and under the name (of) "God."

Pursuing what I call a "radical theology," I want to be "after" God in as many ways as possible, not only after/post the dualism of The City of God but also after/ad the name of God that gives words to a desire beyond desire, which Derrida has subtly if enigmatically set loose in texts like "Circumfession." This eccentric restaging of Augustine's Confessions is a deeply nuanced deconstruction of Christianity and even more so of his own Judaism, "haunting" the religious beliefs it repeats, making them tremble while also suggesting they contain something they cannot contain. Deconstruction is not "critique" but an oblique affirmation. Derrida does not try to "occupy" the Confessions like a conquering colonial army but to "repeat" religion "without religion," according to the subtle logic of the sans, thereby exposing the structure of a more profound foi that is going on in the Confessions while not being held captive by its doctrinal croyances. Deconstruction is not "occupying;" it is reading, slowly and meticulously.

Once the binarity of theism and atheism is displaced, once the grip of these "-isms" is broken, then thinking and acting after God can begin, as free from theism as from atheism, but also, apace Watkin, as free from atheism as from theism.

The Danger of Calling Behavior "Biblical"

 

The author argues that there are many meanings of the adjective 'biblical.'

 

My Take: The danger of calling behavior ‘biblical’

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/17/my-take-the-danger-of-calling-behavior-biblical/?hpt=hp_c1

 

 

Editor's Note: Rachel Held Evans is a popular blogger from Dayton, Tennessee, and author of “A Year of Biblical Womanhood.”

 

By Rachel Held Evans, Special to CNN

November 17, 2012 

 

On "The Daily Show" recently, Jon Stewart grilled Mike Huckabee about a TV ad in which Huckabee urged voters to support “biblical values” at the voting box.

 

When Huckabee said that he supported the “biblical model of marriage,” Stewart shot back that “the biblical model of marriage is polygamy.”

 

And there’s a big problem, Stewart went on, with reducing “biblical values” to one or two social issues such as abortion and gay marriage, while ignoring issues such as poverty and immigration reform.

 

It may come as some surprise that as an evangelical Christian, I cheered Stewart on from my living room couch.

 

As someone who loves the Bible and believes it to be the inspired word of God, I hate seeing it reduced to an adjective like Huckabee did. I hate seeing my sacred text flattened out, edited down and used as a prop to support a select few political positions and platforms.

 

And yet evangelicals have grown so accustomed to talking about the Bible this way that we hardly realize we’re doing it anymore. We talk about “biblical families,” “biblical marriage,” “biblical economics,” “biblical politics,” “biblical values,” “biblical stewardship,” “biblical voting,” “biblical manhood,” “biblical womanhood,” even “biblical dating” to create the impression that the Bible has just one thing to say on each of these topics - that it offers a single prescriptive formula for how people of faith ought to respond to them.

 

But the Bible is not a position paper. The Bible is an ancient collection of letters, laws, poetry, proverbs, histories, prophecies, philosophy and stories spanning multiple genres and assembled over thousands of years in cultures very different from our own.

 

When we turn the Bible into an adjective and stick it in front of another loaded word, we tend to ignore or downplay the parts of the Bible that don’t quite fit our preferences and presuppositions. In an attempt to simplify, we force the Bible’s cacophony of voices into a single tone and turn a complicated, beautiful, and diverse holy text into a list of bullet points we can put in a manifesto or creed. More often than not, we end up more committed to what we want the Bible to say than what it actually says.

 

Nowhere is this more evident than in conversations surrounding “biblical womanhood.”

 

Growing up in the Bible Belt, I received a lot of mixed messages about the appropriate roles of women in the home, the church and society, each punctuated with the claim that this or that lifestyle represented true “biblical womanhood.”

 

In my faith community, popular women pastors such as Joyce Meyer were considered unbiblical for preaching from the pulpit in violation of the apostle Paul's restriction in 1 Timothy 2:12 ("I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent"), while Amish women were considered legalistic for covering their heads in compliance with his instructions in 1 Corinthians 11:5 ("Every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head").

 

Pastors told wives to submit to their husbands as the apostle Peter instructed in 1 Peter 3:1, but rarely told them to avoid wearing nice jewelry as the apostle instructs them just one sentence later in 1 Peter 3:3. Despite the fact that being single was praised by both Jesus and Paul, I learned early on that marriage and motherhood were my highest callings, and that Proverbs 31 required I keep a home as tidy as June Cleaver's.

 

This didn’t really trouble me until adulthood, when I found myself in a childless egalitarian marriage with a blossoming career and an interest in church leadership and biblical studies. As I wrestled with what it meant to be a woman of faith, I realized that, despite insistent claims that we don’t “pick and choose” from the Bible, any claim to a “biblical” lifestyle requires some serious selectivity.

 

After all, technically speaking, it is “biblical” for a woman to be sold by her father to pay off debt, “biblical” for a woman to be required to marry her rapist, “biblical” for her to be one of many wives.

 

So why are some Bible passages lifted out and declared “biblical,” while others are explained away or simply ignored? Does the Bible really present a single prescriptive lifestyle for all women?

 

These were the questions that inspired me to take a page from A.J. Jacobs, author of "The Year of Living Biblically", and try true biblical womanhood on for size—literally, no “picking and choosing."

 

This meant, among other things, growing out my hair, making my own clothes, covering my head whenever I prayed, abstaining from gossip, remaining silent in church (unless I was “prophesying,” of course), calling my husband "master,” even camping out in my front yard during my period to observe the Levitical purity laws that rendered me unclean.

 

During my yearlong experiment, I interviewed a variety of women practicing biblical womanhood in different ways — an Orthodox Jew, an Amish housewife, even a polygamist family - and I combed through every commentary I could find, reexamining the stories of biblical women such as Deborah, Ruth, Hagar, Tamar, Mary Magdalene, Priscilla and Junia.

 

My goal was to playfully challenge this idea that the Bible prescribes a single lifestyle for how to be a woman of faith, and in so doing, playfully challenge our overuse of the term “biblical.” I did this not out of disdain for Scripture, but out of love for it, out of respect for the fact that interpreting and applying the Bible is a messy, imperfect and - at times - frustrating process that requires humility and grace as we wrestle the text together.

 

The fact of the matter is, we all pick and choose. We’re all selective in our interpretation and application of the biblical text. The better question to ask one another is why we pick and choose the way that we do, why we emphasis some passages and not others. This, I believe, will elevate the conversation so that we’re using the Bible, not as a blunt weapon, but as a starting point for dialogue.

 

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Rachel Held Evans.

 

 

 

Do We Have an Open Bible or a Closed Bible? Or, What Makes an Open Bible Closed?

 

I recently wrote a post that detailed the differences between reading the Bible as a Scriptural Bible as versus an Academic Bible. For myself, I believe the Bible may be read broadly in both ways, and with an equal balance lest it become distorted by dogma on the one hand, or skepticism on the other. But when taking the Genesis account of creation and asking whether it is historical or figurative immediately can divide Christians between a literalistic reading of Genesis or a non-literal reading of the story of creation. And to further presage my case, I would call into question Paul's definitive understanding of the Genesis story by flatly stating that he could not know the answer, nor indeed was it necessary that he knew the answer. To tell Paul that mankind evolved would have made no sense to him in his ancient view of cosmogony filled with mythic import. For so it was, holding serpents that reasoned with man; god-like humans who could speak to the God of the Universe; who lived in undisturbed Paradise that bore a special fruit to give one life and another death; who nakedly walked-about in innocence with one anther without a care in the world or a fight between them; who daily communed within the pleasant, sheltering spaces of an environ that held neither harm nor ill to them such as sickness or death. No. Paul simply understood God to have created man and went on from there. Even so, an evolutionary view of man's creation can also see God as man's Creator. And though both viewpoints differ by the process (an ancient v. a modern cosmogony; a process of an immediate v. a mediated generation of creation) the outcome is much the same. And yet, it may not be as simple as all that because these very different approaches to the these questions affects how we read the Bible and understand God. Hence we have a secondary problem...

 

And that problem is determinative to how we read the Bible through the lenses of our belief systems (in several previous articles of late I've described these as our epistemologies). To read the Bible literally is to never question its texts nor to use any outside academic disciplines to be placed "over" the text of Scripture. However, a non-literal view will fully utilized any-and-all resources as necessary to determining the meaning of the Biblical text. As example, the applicable usage of the evolutionary theory coupled with a historical/critical method that would compare creation stories between ancient near eastern countries (from the same time period and place) would be considered just and proper. As such, and from what we know of history, Paul could not know anything about evolution because he was removed from the event (as common sense would tell us) and probably had an imperfect academic understanding of the similar ancient creation accounts that had existed at one time between very old cultures.Why? Because the Jewish text was written 600 years earlier from his century, and because the other similar creation accounts from Sumeria and Akkadia were much, much older even still (2500 years and more). And no, I don't believe that God told him, nor that it was necessary for Paul to know this information, based upon the message he wished to communicate. Namely, that Jesus is Lord and Savior. God simply used his ancient world-and-life view (or epistemic paradigms) and spoke to him of Jesus' comparative worth-and-meaning versus his interpretive knowledge of Jewish literature at the time (which now compounds our historic contextual studies four-fold! Requiring knowledge of ancient cultures - both Paul's and earlier; knowledge of Jewish beliefs as they transformed from Moses' Day to the Jesus'; Paul's biographical makeup himself; and of creation stories themselves; plus innumerable other details!)

 

The Scriptural Bible approach (also known as Sola Scriptura) would ignore all scientific and archaeologic criteria and tell us that what the text says is what it says (whatever that may be according to whoever is speaking at the time and according to the epistemology that they wish to vouchsafe). Whereas the Academic Bible approach would say that such a declarative raison de force reinforces a much larger religious view that is less naively dogmatic. While also saying that this same non-transparent epistemology creates in itself an unnecessarily restrictive (and protective) position not allowing additional tools and resources to be brought to bear on the historic understanding of the biblical text and culture of the ancient world at that time.

 

Another problem is how God spoke to Paul. That is, how Paul received God's revelation. At base here is whether God spoke to Paul as an automaton-like transcribing machine. Or if He spoke to Paul through all of Paul's primitive knowledge of the world, his character and personality traits, his temperament, life-based experiences, and so on. Of course the answer is yes to the second proposal and no to the first. Which is a relief because it then leaves a lot of room for the multi-dimensional uses of the human symbolic language consequently providing Scripture with its relevancy of communication to us today (I think of this as the mystery of language - that is, its currency and relevancy). If the human language were simply a machine language or even a reductionistic mathematical expression of formulaic syllogisms than it would have very little value for us today. In fact, I think we could rightly argue that by its very exactness of statement we would find the Bible immediately conflicted and obtuse (as machine type languages become requiring upgrades to the relevant environment around itself because it cannot transition on its own). But as expressed inside of human language instead of machine language interpretive relevancy and vogue lives and breathes and remains open to us today. As example, its stories (or narratives) in-and-of themselves would defeat any of our efforts to systematized the Bible into a complete collection of systematic statements or doctrines. It can't be done. And when it has been done creates too many fractured interpretations of God and the world.

 

And yet another problem is that the academic approach helps to take away the magic-like qualities attributed to the Bible which causes us to think of it as a mysterious answer book. And placing us in jeopardy of worshipping the Bible rather than the God-behind-the-Bible (what we call bibliolatry). And by adding magic-like doctrines of inerrancy to the Bible (where the Bible is meant to have no errors and is unbowed before man's more finite comprehensions) we remove it once again from the realms of external resources like science or ancient literary studies or even the study of the human language called philology. And when all is said-and-done we've created an iron-clad dogmatic system of belief that cannot interpret the Bible in any other way than through its own use of a strict literalism (dogmatic systems like Evangelicalism are an example of this). Completing the circle, modern day science and academic disciplines are no longer allowed to as outside resources helpful to understanding the Bible because they do not have the "deified" status of the Bible and thus cannot critique its sacred pages. This final qualifier makes the circle complete, as we say.

However, it has been the argument here at Relevancy22, that biblical/historical/scientific criticism must be used in understanding the Bible. If not, we can no longer hear God's living Word having created a closed Bible that speaks back to us of our own systems and beliefs, rather than of God's faithful and everlasting voice. An open Bible says that one must use both approaches - the Scriptural Bible AND the Academic Bible approach - in order to properly hear and understand God's Word. Even more so, we have an open Bible that is not closed off in its communication to us. That is not speaking back to us our own dogmas and religious beliefs. As a broadly Scriptural Bible I understand it as God's Word(s) to me (one which requires the reader to identify his epistemic sense of interpretation; thus requiring self-doubt and honesty). And as an Academic Bible I understand that it retains mysteries lost through the years from its originating authorship that cannot be understood except through the use of external academic tools provided for the task. That my own naive or simplistic interpretation of biblical texts couched within my own epistemic framework may not be enough to fully disclose its truths. By doing all this and more, dogmatic religious beliefs are kept at bay and the Bible remains living and relevant for us today.

 

R.E. Slater

November 16, 2012 

 

 

Previous articles that may be helpful -

Why Do We Need a Historical Adam? The Bible Doesn't

Peter Enns Responds (to the Sola Scriptura view)



Continue to -

Index to past articles on "An Open Faith and Open Theology"






 

What is Biblical or Historical Criticism? Part 1 of 3

The Roles of Biblical Criticism
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/11/15/the-roles-of-biblical-criticism-rjs/

by RJS
November 15, 2012

 

The introduction to the new book by Marc Brettler (Brandeis University), Peter Enns (Eastern University) and Daniel J. Harrington (Boston College), The Bible and the Believer: How to Read the Bible Critically & Religiously, provides a brief sketch of the history of biblical interpretation and the rise of historical criticism. The emphasis of this book is on the Hebrew Bible/Christian Old Testament with Marc Brettler providing a Jewish perspective, Peter Enns a Protestant perspective and Daniel Harrington a Catholic perspective. All three are both believers and biblical scholars.

 

As a scholarly term biblical criticism does not have a negative or pejorative connotation – at least it need not have such a connotation. For the believer biblical criticism is broadly defined as “the process of establishing the original, contextual meaning of the biblical text and assessing their historical accuracy.” (p. 3)

“Historical criticism,” which means placing a biblical text in its original historical context, is our preferred term. Historical criticism often involves comparing the text with parallel or analogous biblical or extrabiblical texts from the same general geographical area and the same general time period. This helps us better understand what was “in the air” at the time and what may have been the cultural assumptions underlying the biblical texts, its authors, and earliest audiences. (p. 4)

The sketch of the history of biblical interpretation begins almost immediately after the writing of the earliest portions of the Hebrew scriptures. The later writers wrestle with and interpret the earlier texts. The inter-testamental authors wrestled with the text – as we see in works like those found among the Dead Sea scrolls. Large portions of the New Testament “can be regarded as an interpretative process of connecting Israel’s story with the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.” ( p. 11) This later point is important. Unless we understand the Old Testament, and the general cultural assumptions concerning the Hebrew Scriptures at play in the first century, we will almost certainly misinterpret large parts of the New Testament message. The New Testament authors, Brettler, Enns, and Harrington note, “quote the Old Testament well over 300 times and allude to it over a thousand times.” These are significant quotations and allusions, deeply entwined with the meaning the authors wishes to convey.

 

The reformation laid the groundwork for scholarly biblical criticism and the rise of skeptical biblical criticism. The reformation doctrine of sola scriptura required that the faithful believer pay close attention to what Scripture is actually saying. This also led to a political twist to biblical criticism. Biblical criticism moved out of the church and became a tool to undermine the authority of the church, and the authority of the state when church and state were intertwined. The deep enlightenment and modernist skepticism grew further and became tied to questions of science and faith – with miracles denied and the text demythologized. There is much more to this history – more in the brief sketch provided by Brettler, Enns and Harrington; and even more in the books suggested for Further Reading.

 

Out of this history though, there is perhaps a path forward. A path that does not ignore the results of textual criticism, source criticism, redaction criticism, historical criticism, but considers them critically in conversation with traditions of religious faith.

While we may sympathize at times with some of the critics on either side, we are convinced that it is possible to read the Bible both critically and religiously. Although historically it has been the case that “the scriptural Bible and the academic Bible are fundamentally different creations oriented toward rival interpretive communities,” we do not believe that this should be so. We used the broad understanding of historical criticism, proposed by scholars like John Barton, as outlined earlier: biblical criticism refers to the process of establishing the original contextual meaning of biblical texts with the tools of literary and historical analysis. Whatever challenges such study raises for religious belief are brought into conversation with religious tradition rather than deemed grounds for dismissing either that tradition or biblical criticism. (p. 18-19)

The next three or so posts will look at how this conversation between historical criticism and religious tradition plays out for Brettler’s Jewish approach, Harrington’s Catholic approach, and Enns’s Protestant approach.

 

What does it mean to use historical criticism in conversation with religious tradition?

 

Does the Protestant refrain of Sola Scriptura require that the conversation occur?

 

After all, if Scripture is our authority, whatever contributes to a a better understanding of scripture should help us better understand the faith.

 

Or does the Protestant refrain of Sola Scriptura relegate historical criticism to a back seat?

 

After all, the plain meaning of scripture should be accessible to anyone, anywhere, with only a moderate education required.

 

 

 

 

What Is the Number One Obstacle in Living for Jesus?

 

Jesus Doesn't Want You to Be Afraid

http://www.intervarsity.org/blog/jesus-doesnt-want-you-be-afraid

 

By: Adam and Christine Jeske

November 12, 2012

 

 Three weeks ago, I asked several hundred college students a question:

 

What is your biggest obstacle today to giving your whole life for God’s global mission?

 

Let me be clear, as I was that day—I wasn’t asking about dropping out of society, selling everything, and moving to Turkmenistan (although that was fair game).

 

Rather, I explained that giving your whole life for God’s global mission is being fully given over to God’s purposes in the world. If you’re following Jesus' calling, you can serve God just as well as a businessperson in the U.S. as a church planter in Sri Lanka.

 

I had people text me their biggest obstacles to fully following Jesus. Some answers were not very surprising: selfishness, busyness, lust, health issues, lack of self-discipline, and materialism.

 

And the Number One Obstacle Is . . .

 

But one answer stood out, named by a quarter of those responding as their biggest obstacle to giving their whole life to global mission: fear.

 

These students—and Christians, no less—were afraid of everything:

• Being alone
• Failing
• Being uncomfortable
• Not knowing where they’re going or what they’re doing
• Entering a new culture
• What their parents would say
• Not hearing God correctly
• Not being good enough
• Being unprepared spiritually
• Not speaking well
• Being too broken

 

I couldn’t believe it. Fear is the biggest obstacle to these followers of Jesus fully joining in his mission, whether here in the U.S. or anywhere in the world. How did this happen?

 

Real Reasons for Fear (Escalators Not Included)

 

We know there are people around the world with seriously fearful surroundings—gnawing hunger, no education for their children, violent crime, unjust local officials, unhealthy water, and spreading disease.

 

And most of us know, when we’re logical about it, that a lot of our fears here in the West are wildly spun out of control. We find TV reports like, “The Hidden Dangers of Escalators.” Really?

 

And then there are big fears. At the end of it all, we are dead. And that scares us. So we run around trying to do whatever we can to preserve our lives, whether through work, success, family, relationships, art, or health. It makes sense to me that people who don’t know Jesus would be afraid. We hear messages all day saying, “If you’re not afraid of all these things, you’re not normal.”

 

A Call to Abnormality (Yes, This Includes You)

 

But I thought that’s exactly what Christians are supposed to be—not normal.

 

Think about what we read in the Bible:

• “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1).

• “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).

• “The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry,’Abba, Father’” (Romans 8:15).

• “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7).

• And perhaps most pointedly: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18).

 

Admittedly, we are outliers on this one. We got married while we were still college students. A year later, we boarded a plane for Nicaragua with a vague connection to a friend of a friend that we hoped would meet us when we arrived. We lived without power, water or transportation. We took our baby daughter to the most polluted city in the world, Lanzhou, China. We rode motorcycles across southern Africa.

 

That doesn’t mean we didn’t get scared. We got scared when Adam’s amoebas wouldn’t go away in Nicaragua and then his already weak body picked up malaria. Or when we blew black snot out of our noses in China. Or when our neighborhood had its third break-in within a month in South Africa (where you’re 20 times more likely to get murdered by gunshot than in the U.S.), and then Chrissy found police dealing with a dead body down the street.

 

But do you think God didn’t really mean that stuff about fear in the Bible? When you get scared, you have to do something about it. Naming it helps. Reading and claiming these biblical reminders can helps. Praying light-saber prayers that cut your fears to pieces can help.

 

As we wrestled with trying to follow Jesus here in the U.S., Chrissy wrote a chapter on fear in This Ordinary Adventure: Settling Down Without Settling. She said fear is like underwear. Everyone’s putting it on every day and keeping it politely covered up.

 

Here’s your chance to bring your fear out into the light.

 

A Step Through Our Fear

 

The hundreds of Christians I spoke to named fear as the greatest obstacle to joining in God's global mission. And, truth be told, there is good reason to be afraid. I work for Urbana. Each year, we hear about Urbana alumni who have suffered and even been martyred for their faithful proclamation of Jesus Christ, even while serving obvious needs in hard places around the world. Jesus' call to give up everything we have (Luke 14:33)—the call to follow the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and the call to take up your cross and step into God's global mission—is not to be taken lightly. But a life of playing it safe rarely results in God being glorified or our neighbors being loved.

 

So. What are you afraid of? Name it as a first step in facing your fear. And then ask God—the stronghold of your life—if you should go to Urbana as a next step in facing your fear and being open to his mission for your life, whatever it might be.

 

 

 

 

Henry Rollins on "Civil Rights, Gay Marriage and American Homophobia"

Henry Rollins on Gay Marriage

 

Published on Jul 1, 2012 by bigthink

 

 

 

Why are some Americans so strongly opposed to gay marriage? Henry Rollins is convinced that not so many people are actually opposed. Instead he sees it as a fundraising tool for small fringe groups.

Henry Rollins is an American singer-songwriter, spoken word artist, writer, comedian,publisher, actor, and radio DJ.After performing for the short-lived Washington D.C.-based band State of Alert in 1980, Rollins fronted the California hardcore punk band Black Flag from August 1981 until mid-1986. Following the band's breakup, Rollins soon established the record label and publishing company 2.13.61 to release his spoken word albums, as well as forming the Rollins Band, which toured with a number of lineups from 1987 until 2003, and during 2006. Since Black Flag, Rollins has embarked on projects covering a variety of media. He has hosted numerous radio shows, such as Harmony in My Head on Indie 103, and television shows such as The Henry Rollins Show, MTV's 120 Minutes, and Jackass. He had a recurring dramatic role in the second season of Sons of Anarchy and has also had roles in several films. Rollins has also campaigned for various political causes in the United States, including promoting LGBT rights, World Hunger Relief, and an end to war in particular, and tours overseas with the United Service Organizations to entertain American troops.

Directed / Produced by
Jonathan Fowler and Elizabeth Rodd
http://bigthink.com/

 

 

 

 

I'm Not Compelled By Your Argument

I kept hearing the statement "I'm not compelled by your argument" ringing in my ears and thinking to myself, really? Did you just read what I wrote or did you just skim through what you thought I wrote? And did you take the time to compare the past many articles I have labored through these past many months and years before impulsively proclaiming a verdict as my judge-and-jury on a subject matter you really didn't want to hear or think about in the first place because it differed from your own personal view of the world? And was probably not a subject of special burden that had burdened you like it had me for decades - having been considered-and-rejected innumerable times before then re-considering it time-and-again - until finally concluding that I should share my discoveries without the doubt or distress that has plagued me for so many years. Making me wonder, when hearing your words of adamant proclamation, whether "there is really any room left for thinking Christians?" Apparently, according to your more informed estimations, "most thinking Christians are those that reinforce you're previously established beliefs and expectations to a previous body of dogmatic co-commitments you had arranged in your mind from long ago. So that those that don't fulfill these self-serving personal categories are immediately thrown under the bus and labeled heretical."

At the last, "Do I really care whether you're compelled or not." Really, its your life to throw away as you wish. Or to hold on to the fantasies you find comforting to believe. It's as if I were back watching my favorite TV show Lost and suddenly seeing the survivors of the TransOceanic wreckage vanish or die at the slightest hairbreath of an internalized existential decision they had just made. A decision that became immediately apparent by observable word and deed. And each time that I watched the suddenness of this externalized phenomena remove another stand-in (or unfortunate cast member) I thought to myself, "My, the hand of death is quick and decisive!" (I was one of those few who still clung to  the original first year theory despite denials to the contrary by Abrams, Lindelof, and Cuse). Fearfully, the death theme of Lost continues throughout this wide, wide world today - where death-like decisions occur all too frequently in spur-of-the-moment decisions, leaving a living soul in a comatose condition hardened and seared by their own illusions of life. So that not even God Himself could break through to such hearts at these times.

So why should it be my burden to be moved at the hands of an Almighty God who continues to pound away at the fortresses of our darkened hearts? I thought the OT prophets were dead. And it certainly didn't do Jesus any good dying at the hands of His religious convictors. Certainly the early Church had also paid a heavy price for its beliefs demanding personal introspection and self-doubt. So let's just say right now that as Christians we're committed to a living faith, and not a living religion filled with sacrosanct dogmas and its holy altars of untouchables. Not even Jesus could break through the religious barriers of His day, and I highly doubt we can do any better before those who remain uncompelled. So pray then to be students of the living Word and try to discover a way to always hold within yourself a healthy reserve of self-doubt coupled with a listening, discerning heart. I don't believe God has stopped speaking yet. And I fully expect God to be using even now living prophets and servants of Jesus to tell the story of the Gospel as fully and completely as they can. Revelation has not ended. No, for we serve a self-revealing God ceaseless in His activity, abandoned to His creation, unbounded in His imagination, and rueful towards any craven idols clutched to our breasts. Even our dogmas. This is our Savior-Redeemer.

 

 

So let's look at another, more startling disciple of existential rhetoric. A Mr. Richard Dawkins whom I haven't thought about in a long time. And to judge by his speeches feels deeply moved to declare just what he thinks about Christianity (or "religion" in general). A faith that he seems to despise for its many sins and hypocrisies. And yet, at first blush, many of his arguments seem at the surface true... and certainly can give one pause to think through just what-and-why we are doing what we are doing as Christian faithful. To that end I give Mr. Dawkins thanks for his insights, though I would wish it less zealous, less ruthless, perhaps more compassionate. How he got to this space in life is anybody's guess... perhaps he, like so many we meet in life, simply wish to reinforce their own diminished view of the world and in the bargin gain some sympathetic listeners to their tales of distress and woe. Perhaps this demeanor resulted from early childhood idealisms gone horribly wrong. Or, cherished loved ones tragically lost. Or even, circumspect agony incited by watching and reading of so many ghastly wars and useless  global sufferings. Perhaps all of these and none of these provided Mr. Dawkins with his present day scripts of blatant atheism and God-filled objections to organized religion.

 

 

But no matter Mr. Dawkin's inner private demons, I would like to provide a short clip of his view of the God of the Old Testament and simply ask how we should we respond? Are we compelled by his arguments? Are we moved to envision a better form of faith than presently practiced? To practice a faith more wholistically compelling than being presently observed by the wide-awake world? For regardless our faith differences the body of Christ bears responsibility for the message and ministry of the Gospel of Jesus as we have embraced it. Let us then pick a spot or two and simply try to work on Mr. Dawkin's griefs and laments a bit better than it has been in the long ages of the Church when grace, mercy, peace and forgiveness came through Jesus. Let it begin with prayer and from there see where it can spill over in the goo of life.

 

And with that introduction here it is... expect in this version to be offended, shocked and angered. Mr. Dawkins wants you to feel this way. He wants you to be introspective and to do something about it. For followers of Jesus our choice is simple. Learn to love our neighbor better than we have. And if we can't then ask God to put a little love into the doctrines of your church gospel. If we don't change than Mr. Dawkins message is what he expected it to be all along - simply a cliche for the larger ills of life we wish to do little or nothing about. In the end, "Let the world be compelled by your lifestyle, by your love for others, and certainly, by your argument as a Jesus bearer!"

 

R.E. Slater

November 16, 2012

The God of The Old Testament

is Arguably the most Unpleasant of all Fiction

 

 

[YT] "Richard Dawkins presents his view on the Old Testament God.

This has been considered the most controversial part of his book and

due to that he has also received some death threats and menaces from

some fundamentalists christians. A very christian gesture, indeed!"

Features » December 8, 2006

The Godless Fundamentalist

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2933/

 

In The Root of All Evil, biologist Richard Dawkins reveals his own lust for certainty

 

BY Lakshmi Chaudhry

 

Religion fucking blows!” declares comedian Roseanne Barr in her latest HBO special. Her pronouncement, both in its declarative certainty and self-congratulatory defiance, could easily serve as the succinct moral of Richard Dawkins’ documentary, The Root of All Evil.

 

The big-screen version of a two-part British television series follows the noted biologist as he embarks on a global road-trip to the veritable bastions of theological conviction–the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a Christian conservative stronghold in Colorado Springs, a Hassidic community in the heart of London–bullying, berating and heckling the devoutly faithful he encounters along his way.

 

Confronting cancer patients who have traveled to Lourdes in hopes of a cure, Dawkins tells the viewer in the first scene, “It may seem tough to question the beliefs of these poor, desperate people’s faith.” By the end of the documentary, Dawkins’ bravado is not in doubt. When talking to Ted Haggard, a New Life Church pastor (more recently infamous for his predilection for crystal meth and gay prostitutes), after witnessing one of his sermons, Dawkins tells him, “I was almost reminded of the Nuremberg rallies … Dr. Goebbels would have been proud.” To a hapless guide at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, he taunts, “Do you really believe that Jesus’ body lay here?” And then there’s his remark–“I’m really worried for the well-being of your children”–to a Hassidic school teacher, Rabbi Herschel Gluck, whom Dawkins accuses of brainwashing innocent kids.

 

As he storms his way around the world in the state of high dudgeon, Dawkins’ attitude can be best described as apocalyptic outrage. The effect is in turns bewildering, embarrassing, grating and even unintentionally comic, as we watch the distinguished Oxford University Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science channel his inner Borat. When the astonished rabbi exclaims, “You are a fundamentalist believer,” even a sympathetic, true-blue San Francisco audience cannot help but chuckle in assent.

 

As his rabbinical nemesis rightly suspects, Dawkins’ fondness for sweeping generalizations reflects his own deep-seated fundamentalism, a virulent form of atheism that mirrors the polarized worldview of the religious extremists it claims to oppose. “They condemn not just belief in God, but respect for belief in God. Religion is not just wrong; it’s evil,” writes Gary Wolf in his Wired Magazine cover story, “The New Atheism,” whose leading exponents include–in addition to Dawkins–Daniel Dennett, a philosophy professor at Yale, punk rocker Greg Graffin and Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. These are the self-styled “Brights,” the moniker of choice for Dawkins to describe “a person whose worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements.”

 

The “bright” worldview is also remarkably free of complexity. Dawkins’ view of faith can be summed up thus: Religion is dangerous because it requires that we suspend our powers of reason to place our faith in the shared delusion that is God. This, he asserts, is the first step on that “slippery slope” to hatred and violence.

 

When we cede our “critical faculties” to believe in the idea of a higher power, Dawkins claims, we are immediately invested in a panoply of increasingly ludicrous propositions: that the Virgin Mary ascended directly to heaven, Moses parted the seas, God created the world in seven days, or beautiful virgins await good Muslims in heaven. Why not, he asks, believe in fairies or hobgoblins?

 

Faith, in his universe, is interchangeable with superstition, eccentricity, madness, and, at its most benign, infantilism. Religious conviction is a marker of human backwardness, both in a historical and psychological sense. According to Dawkins, human beings invented religion as a “crutch” for ignorance. Without science to help us understand the world around us, we turned to gods/faith/superstition to cope with our sense of helplessness. Today, religion remains a source of succor to those unable to outgrow their childish desire to see the world in terms of “black and white, as a battle between good and evil”–unlike atheists who are “responsible adults and accept that life is complex.”

 

“We’re brought from cradle to believe that there is something good about faith,” says Dawkins, as he compares this belief to “a virus that infects the young, for generation after generation.” Fortunate are the “responsible adults” who grow up to shake off these beliefs, unlike the rest of humanity who remain trapped in their infantile desire to be taken care of by an all-powerful deity.

 

Unlike fairytales, however, our religious beliefs are not harmless, says Dawkins, they instead lay the foundation for the murder and mayhem inevitably wreaked by true believers. His evidence: the Inquisition, the Holocaust, the Crusades, the 9/11 attacks, and less spectacular crimes against humanity like suicide bombers, anti-abortion killers, and so on.

 

This broad-stroked caricature of faith is delivered with a breathtaking disregard for historical context, in which social, political or economic conditions are simply ignored or discounted. “[Dawkins] has a simple-as-that, plain-as-day approach to the grandest questions, unencumbered by doubt, consistency, or countervailing information,” writes Marilynne Robinson in the November Harpers’, while reviewing his bestselling book, The God Delusion. And on screen he is no different. Of course, there are sound political causes for the Palestinian conflict, Dawkins hurriedly acknowledges–only to assert in the same breath that the real culprit is religion, which teaches its adherents to think, “I’m right and you’re wrong.”

 

Not unlike the religious simpletons he claims to disdain, Dawkins sees the world in terms of a battle of Good vs. Evil, cloaked here as Science vs. Religion. Where Religion is corrupt, tyrannical and false, Science offers intellectual integrity, freedom and truth. As Robinson notes, Dawkins fails to acknowledge Science’s less admirable achievements, be they eugenics, Hiroshima, or the more mundane travesties committed by unethical doctors or fat-cat researchers in service of corporate funding.

 

“Dawkins implicitly defines science as a clear-eyed quest for truth, chaste as an algorithm, while religion is atavistic, mad, and mired in crime,” Robinson writes.

 

In this version of atheist theology, Science attains the same status as Dawkins’ loathed “alpha male in sky,” whose laws rule all things known and unknown. If we do not quite understand how the universe was created or the human brain works–or the competing, contradictory claims about the virtues of, say, table salt–all we need to do is wait and keep faith in the scientific method, which will reveal all in good time. The ways of Science are no less sacred or mysterious than that of God.

 

Like his fellow fundamentalists, Dawkins has no use for moderation or its practitioners. The people of faith featured in his documentary are strict, true believers, who adhere to the most rigid interpretations of their respective faiths. There are no Muslim doctors, church-going geneticists or Catholics who support abortion rights. Anyone who believes in evolution and God is just as deluded or in denial, and, as he tells Wired, “really on the side of the fundamentalists.”

 

Nothing less than a complete renunciation of all things spiritual will suffice. “As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers,” he writes in The God Delusion, in an eerie echo of President Bush’s post-9/11 point of view: “You’re either with us or against us.”

 

It would be silly to argue that the new atheists’ crusade is as dangerous as the so-called war on terror, but that crusade does give aid and comfort to fundamentalists everywhere by affirming their view of faith: one, science and religion are mutually opposed and exclusive worldviews; two, religion is immutable and outside history; and therefore, three, the Bible (or the Quran, for that matter) must be taken literally, and is not open to interpretation. For both camps, ignoring one law or moderating a single injunction is the first step toward rejecting the faith in its entirety.

 

This great war of ontologies, seductive though it may be in our beleaguered times, becomes immediately absurd if we remind ourselves of one simple fact: Science and Religion are historical in the richest sense of the word. They both inform and reflect our changing ideas about ourselves and the world around us. From the practice of throwing a woman on her husband’s funeral pyre in India to determining intelligence by the shape of person’s skull in Europe–both of which seem hateful today–religious and scientific beliefs ebb, rise and transmute themselves over time. To pretend otherwise is to ignore the vast bulk of what we call History, which the Brights seem just as willing to rewrite as their theological adversaries.

 

As innately human endeavors, religion and science are therefore as unreasonable, noble, immoral, kind, tyrannical, odious, compassionate–in other words, irredeemably human–as the people who literally embody them. Yes, the laws of nature and those of God might still exist without human beings, but there would be no one to name or know them as such, or act on that knowledge. Taken together, they express our need to both submit and to control, to know and to believe, to be in the visible world and to transcend it.

 

That the vast majority of us would find it difficult to choose between the two should be hardly surprising. The antidote to fanaticism is not a new puritanism of reason, but the contradictory, ambiguous, compromised reality of ordinary human experience.

 

ABOUT THIS AUTHOR

 

Lakshmi Chaudhry, a former In These Times senior editor and Nation contributing editor, is a senior editor at Firstpost.com, India's first web-only news site. Since 1999 she has been a reporter and an editor for various independent publications, including Alternet, Mother Jones, Ms., Bitch and Salon.

 

Does the Bible Prove Open Theology?

The Bible Proves Open Theology?

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by Thomas Jay Oord
November 15, 2012

I’ve been working with my graduate theological students lately on issues pertaining to open theism. A few biblical passages have played key roles in the discussion.

I’m of the opinion that the majority of the Bible supports open theology’s notions about a loving God in relationship with the world. I think the Bible generally supports the notion that creatures have genuine freedom, which God gives them.

I also think the Bible supports, overall, the view that God does not know all of the details of the future until those details are worked out in actual experience. I believe God knows all of the possibilities for the future. But I don’t think God knows with certainty which possibilities will be actual until the time comes.

Let me be quick to admit, however, that a few passages in the Bible do not easily fit open theology. They don’t fit, at least, in the way they are typically interpreted. In some, the English words translators use lead away from an openness perspective, although the original Hebrew or Greek words may not do so.

I thought I’d post the biblical passages we’ve been working through together. In my view, they support open and relational theologies well.

God Regrets
                                                         
In the story of Noah, we find that God observes something God apparently did not expect. In fact, God has regrets. This suggests that God doesn’t know all of the future with certainty.

“The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” – Genesis 6:5-6

God Learns

When God sends Abraham to kill his son, God isn’t sure what Abraham will do. Will he be obedient? After seeing Abraham ready to go through with the sacrifice, God learns something about Abraham God did not know previously.

“Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." Genesis 22:10-2

God Changes Plans

God says Hezekiah will die. This apparently reflects God’s plans. But Hezekiah pleads for continued life. So God changes plans, based on Hezekiah’s response. This suggests the future is not settled, complete, or done, and God doesn’t know with certainty all things that will occur in the future.

“In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, "Thus says the LORD: Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover." Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the LORD: "Remember now, O LORD, I implore you, how I have walked before you in faithfulness with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight." And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah: "Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the LORD, the God of your ancestor David: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life.” Isaiah 38: 1-5

God Changes His Mind

Many of us know the story of Jonah and the big fish. But fewer know that God’s plans changed because of Nineveh’s eventual repentance. God tells Jonah that the city will fall. But because Nineveh repented, God changed his mind. God’s statement about Nineveh falling must have been conditional and not express something certain about the future.

“The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, "Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish." When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.” Jonah 3:1-10

Proof?

Do these passages (and many others like them) prove that open and relational theologies are the only way we rightly interpret the Bible? Do they prove that open and relational theologies offer the correct view of God and God’s relation to creation and the future?

No.

But they offer compelling reasons for Christians who think open and relational theologies do a better job than other theological frameworks. They are strong evidence for the biblical basis for open theism. And biblical passages such as these invite us all into the discussion of how we might best think about, worship, imitate, and love the God described in the Bible.