{"id":1459,"date":"2009-05-04T09:00:39","date_gmt":"2009-05-04T09:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/?p=1459"},"modified":"2009-05-04T09:00:39","modified_gmt":"2009-05-04T09:00:39","slug":"reflections_on_the_god_debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/?p=1459","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on the God Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stanley Fish in his New York Times blog<\/a> gives a good review of a new book by Terry Eagleton, entitled: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate<\/a><\/em>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

“…British critic Terry Eagleton asks, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d His answer, elaborated in prose that is alternately witty, scabrous and angry, is that the other candidates for guidance \u00e2\u20ac\u201d science, reason, liberalism, capitalism \u00e2\u20ac\u201d just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deliver what is ultimately needed. ‘What other symbolic form,’ he queries, ‘has managed to forge such direct links between the most universal and absolute of truths and the everyday practices of countless millions of men and women?’
\n“…but at least religion is trying for something more than local satisfactions, for its ‘subject is nothing less than the nature and destiny of humanity itself, in relation to what it takes to be its transcendent source of life.’ And it is only that great subject, and the aspirations it generates, that can lead, Eagleton insists, to ‘a radical transformation of what we say and do.’
\n“The other projects, he concedes, provide various comforts and pleasures, but they are finally superficial and tend to the perpetuation of the status quo rather than to meaningful change: ‘A society of packaged fulfillment, administered desire, managerialized politics and consumerist economics is unlikely to cut to the depth where theological questions can ever be properly raised.’
\n“The fact that science, liberal rationalism and economic calculation can not ask \u00e2\u20ac\u201d never mind answer \u00e2\u20ac\u201d such questions should not be held against them, for that is not what they do.
\n“And, conversely, the fact that religion and theology cannot provide a technology for explaining how the material world works should not be held against them, either, for that is not what they do. When Christopher Hitchens declares that given the emergence of ‘the telescope and the microscope’ religion ‘no longer offers an explanation of anything important,’ Eagleton replies, ‘But Christianity was never meant to be an explanation of anything in the first place. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rather like saying that thanks to the electric toaster we can forget about Chekhov.’\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the entire thing here<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\nStanley Fish | Think Again | The New York Times<\/a>
\nMay 3, 2009, 10:00 pm
\nGod Talk<\/a>
\nIn the opening sentence of the last chapter of his new book, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Reason, Faith and Revolution,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the British critic Terry Eagleton asks, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d His answer, elaborated in prose that is alternately witty, scabrous and angry, is that the other candidates for guidance \u00e2\u20ac\u201d science, reason, liberalism, capitalism \u00e2\u20ac\u201d just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deliver what is ultimately needed. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What other symbolic form,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he queries, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153has managed to forge such direct links between the most universal and absolute of truths and the everyday practices of countless millions of men and women?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nEagleton acknowledges that the links forged are not always benign \u00e2\u20ac\u201d many terrible things have been done in religion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but at least religion is trying for something more than local satisfactions, for its \u00e2\u20ac\u0153subject is nothing less than the nature and destiny of humanity itself, in relation to what it takes to be its transcendent source of life.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And it is only that great subject, and the aspirations it generates, that can lead, Eagleton insists, to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a radical transformation of what we say and do.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nThe other projects, he concedes, provide various comforts and pleasures, but they are finally superficial and tend to the perpetuation of the status quo rather than to meaningful change: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A society of packaged fulfillment, administered desire, managerialized politics and consumerist economics is unlikely to cut to the depth where theological questions can ever be properly raised.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nBy theological questions, Eagleton means questions like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why is there anything in the first place?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why what we do have is actually intelligible to us?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where do our notions of explanation, regularity and intelligibility come from?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nThe fact that science, liberal rationalism and economic calculation can not ask \u00e2\u20ac\u201d never mind answer \u00e2\u20ac\u201d such questions should not be held against them, for that is not what they do.
\nAnd, conversely, the fact that religion and theology cannot provide a technology for explaining how the material world works should not be held against them, either, for that is not what they do. When Christopher Hitchens declares that given the emergence of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the telescope and the microscope\u00e2\u20ac\u009d religion \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no longer offers an explanation of anything important,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eagleton replies, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But Christianity was never meant to be an explanation of anything in the first place. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rather like saying that thanks to the electric toaster we can forget about Chekhov.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nEagleton likes this turn of speech, and he has recourse to it often when making the same point: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[B]elieving that religion is a botched attempt to explain the world . . . is like seeing ballet as a botched attempt to run for a bus.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Running for a bus is a focused empirical act and the steps you take are instrumental to its end. The positions one assumes in ballet have no such end; they are after something else, and that something doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t yield to the usual forms of measurement. Religion, Eagleton is saying, is like ballet (and Chekhov); it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s after something else.
\nAfter what? Eagleton, of course, does not tell us, except in the most general terms: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The coming kingdom of God, a condition of justice, fellowship, and self-fulfillment far beyond anything that might normally be considered possible or even desirable in the more well-heeled quarters of Oxford and Washington.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Such a condition would not be desirable in Oxford and Washington because, according to Eagleton, the inhabitants of those places are complacently in bondage to the false idols of wealth, power and progress. That is, they feel little of the tragedy and pain of the human condition, but instead \u00e2\u20ac\u0153adopt some bright-eyed superstition such as the dream of untrammeled human progress\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and put their baseless \u00e2\u20ac\u0153trust in the efficacy of a spot of social engineering here and a dose of liberal enlightenment there.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nProgress, liberalism and enlightenment \u00e2\u20ac\u201d these are the watchwords of those, like Hitchens, who believe that in a modern world, religion has nothing to offer us. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we discover cures for diseases every day? Doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t technology continually extend our powers and offer the promise of mastering nature? Who needs an outmoded, left-over medieval superstition?
\nEagleton punctures the complacency of these questions when he turns the tables and applies the label of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153superstition\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to the idea of progress. It is a superstition \u00e2\u20ac\u201d an idol or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a belief not logically related to a course of events\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (American Heritage Dictionary) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d because it is blind to what is now done in its name: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The language of enlightenment has been hijacked in the name of corporate greed, the police state, a politically compromised science, and a permanent war economy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d all in the service, Eagleton contends, of an empty suburbanism that produces ever more things without any care as to whether or not the things produced have true value.
\nAnd as for the vaunted triumph of liberalism, what about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the misery wreaked by racism and sexism, the sordid history of colonialism and imperialism, the generation of poverty and famine\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? Only by ignoring all this and much more can the claim of human progress at the end of history be maintained: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If ever there was a pious myth and a piece of credulous superstition, it is the liberal-rationalist belief that, a few hiccups apart, we are all steadily en route to a finer world.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nThat kind of belief will have little use for a creed that has at its center \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one who spoke up for love and justice and was done to death for his pains.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d No wonder \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ditchkins\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Eagleton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s contemptuous amalgam of Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, perhaps with a sidelong glance at Luke 6:39, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d seems incapable of responding to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the kind of commitment made manifest by a human being at the end of his tether, foundering in darkness, pain, and bewilderment, who nevertheless remains faithful to the promise of a transformative love.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nYou won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be interested in any such promise, you won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see the point of clinging to it, if you think that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153apart from the odd, stubbornly lingering spot of barbarism here and there, history on the whole is still steadily on the up,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d if you think that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153not only is the salvation of the human species possible but that contrary to all we read in the newspapers, it has in principle already taken place.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d How, Eagleton asks, can a civilization \u00e2\u20ac\u0153which regards itself as pretty well self-sufficient\u00e2\u20ac\u009d see any point in or need of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153faith or hope\u00e2\u20ac\u009d?
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Self-sufficient\u00e2\u20ac\u009d gets to the heart of what Eagleton sees as wrong with the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153brittle triumphalism\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of liberal rationalism and its ideology of science. From the perspective of a theistic religion, the cardinal error is the claim of the creature to be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153self-originating\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Self-authorship,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eagleton proclaims, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153is the bourgeois fantasy par excellence,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and he could have cited in support the words of that great bourgeois villain, Milton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Satan, who, upon being reminded that he was created by another, retorts , \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[W]ho saw\/ When this creation was\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6?\/ We know no time when we were not as now\/Know none before us, self-begot, self-raised\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Paradise Lost, V, 856-860).That is, we created ourselves (although how there can be agency before there is being and therefore an agent is not explained), and if we are able to do that, why can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we just keep on going and pull progress and eventual perfection out of our own entrails?
\nThat is where science and reason come in. Science, says Eagleton, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153does not start far back enough\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; it can run its operations, but it can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell you what they ultimately mean or provide a corrective to its own excesses. Likewise, reason is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153too skin deep a creed to tackle what is at stake\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; its laws \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the laws of entailment and evidence \u00e2\u20ac\u201d cannot get going without some substantive proposition from which they proceed but which they cannot contain; reason is a non-starter in the absence of an a prior specification of what is real and important, and where is that going to come from? Only from some kind of faith.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ditchkins,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eagleton observes, cannot ground his belief \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in the value of individual freedom\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in scientific observation. It is for him an article of faith, and once in place, it generates facts and reasons and judgments of right and wrong. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Faith and knowledge,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eagleton concludes, are not antithetical but \u00e2\u20ac\u0153interwoven.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have one without the other, despite the Satanic claim that you can go it alone by applying your own independent intellect to an unmediated reality: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All reasoning is conducted within the ambit of some sort of faith, attraction, inclination, orientation, predisposition, or prior commitment.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Meaning, value and truth are not \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reducible to the facts themselves, in the sense of being ineluctably motivated by a bare account of them.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Which is to say that there is no such thing as a bare account of them. (Here, as many have noted, is where religion and postmodernism meet.)
\nIf this is so, the basis for what Eagleton calls \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the rejection of religion on the cheap\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by contrasting its unsupported (except by faith) assertions with the scientifically grounded assertions of atheism collapses; and we are where we always were, confronted with a choice between a flawed but aspiring religious faith or a spectacularly hubristic faith in the power of unaided reason and a progress that has no content but, like the capitalism it reflects and extends, just makes its valueless way into every nook and cranny.
\nFor Eagleton the choice is obvious, although he does not have complete faith in the faith he prefers. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There are no guarantees,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he concedes that a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153transfigured future will ever be born.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But we can be sure that it will never be born, he says in his last sentence, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153if liberal dogmatists, doctrinaire flag-wavers for Progress, and Islamophobic intellectuals . . . continue to stand in its way.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nOne more point. The book starts out witty and then gets angrier and angrier. (There is the possibility, of course, that the later chapters were written first; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just talking about the temporal experience of reading it.) I spent some time trying to figure out why the anger was there and I came up with two explanations.
\nOne is given by Eagleton, and it is personal. Christianity may or may not be the faith he holds to (he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell us), but he speaks, he says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153partly in defense of my own forbearers, against the charge that the creed to which they dedicated their lives is worthless and void.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nThe other source of his anger is implied but never quite made explicit. He is angry, I think, at having to expend so much mental and emotional energy refuting the shallow arguments of school-yard atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins. I know just how he feels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stanley Fish in his New York Times blog gives a good review of a new book by Terry Eagleton, entitled: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d “…British critic Terry Eagleton asks, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why are the most unlikely people, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-politicsculture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}