Carter, probably responding to the blogosphere buzz over John Allen Paulos' article on religiously-informed mathematics, writes,
A belief is a religious belief, says Clouser, provided that (1) It is a belief in something(s) or other as divine, or (2) It is a belief concerning how humans come to stand in relation to the divine. The divine, according to Clouser, is whatever is "just there." He contends that self-existence is the defining characteristic of divinity, so that the control of theories by a belief about what is self-existent is the same as control by a divinity belief and thus amounts to religious control of all theories.I find it fascinating that Clouser and Carter don't see the slick rhetorical move in the definition. If the "divine" is defined into "what is 'just there,'" why use such a loaded word? The answer: it's just a more sophisticated way to say, "Atheism (or naturalism) is a religion." And, as others have famously pointed out, not-stamp-collecting is a hobby.
Whether we refer to it as being self-existent, uncaused, radically independent, etc., it is the point beyond which nothing else can be reduced. Unless we posit an infinite regress of dependent existences, we must ultimately arrive at an entity that fits the criteria for the divine.
Different traditions, religions, and belief systems may disagree about what or who has divine status, or whether such an ontological concept should be considered a "religious belief." But what they all agree upon is that something has such a status. A theist, for instance, will say that the divine is God while a materialist will claim that matter is what fills the category of divine. Therefore, if we examine our concepts in enough detail, we discover that at a deeper level we're not agreeing on what the object is that we're talking about. Our explanations and theories about things will vary depending on what is presupposed as the ultimate explainer. And the ultimate explainer can only be the reality that has divine status.
Don't say you weren't warned.
*See comments below.
16 comments:
Jim,
Clouser attempted to find a common ground among all religions. The result is what he defines as the "divine." The divine is not always worshipped, though, so that doesn't give atheism a pass.
Also, while atheist may not like it, their belief system is generally regarded as a religious belief, both in law and religious scholarship. (Personally, I think atheism is too incoherent to be classified as as a religion but that's not my call to make.)
Naturalism, however, has become as much of a religious belief as, say, Buddhism. The only difference is that Buddhist generally aren't as dogmatic.
Also, I'm not sure why atheists have such a problem with terms like "divine" and "religion." While it may make them feel better, it just makes them appear defensive. In fact, it comes across as if they are more concerned about being anti-religious (or at least a-religious) than having a well-examined, coherent belief system.
Have you read Clouser, Jim?
Paul, obviously he hasn't read Clouser, otherwise he'd realize that Clouser says that if people object to his use of the word "divine" they could subsititute another.
Ha ha, my evil plan is foiled! I was going to get him to say "no", make the point you did, Macht, and then ask if his post was intellectually honest.
But maybe he'll surprise us both and tell us that he's read The Myth of Religious Neutrality 2nd edition.
I'm not sure which scenario would be more embarrassing.
He has [now] been warned!
:-)
Clouser's own words:
I also agree with them that it’s not simply the case that everybody either believes in God or does not believe in God. Rather, everybody either believes in God or puts something else into the status of divinity that belongs only to God. Everyone has a religious belief, then; the major distinction is whether a person believes in the true God or a false one. [emphasis added]
As I stated above, Clouser is making the exact argument I nail him for: rhetorically shifting the meaning of "divine" to be so all-encompassing that even atheists can believe in the "divine."
I retract the charge of intellectual dishonesty--I think he's being honest about his thinking--but it's sloppy reasoning. "Defining down the divine" is a perfect description.
Joe,
As to why atheists have a problem with terms like "divine" and "religion," I'm not sure, though I have my suspicions. I'm not an atheist.
My own beef is that in redefining divinity to mean simply what's "just there," Clouser espouses a lowest-common-denominator view of religion that essentially makes everyone, religious or not, out to be religious. (Since you've so carefully defended the traditional Christian definition of marriage, I'm surprised that you aren't more careful here.)
Consider this reasoning:
Premise 1: All religious believers believe in something that "just is."
Premise 2: Bob believes in something that "just is."
Conclusion: Therefore, Bob is a religious believer.
Affirming the consequent, last time I checked, was a logical fallacy.
You can try to rescue Premise 1 by saying, "All and only religious believers..." but that begs the very question as to why a belief in "just is" is uniquely religious.
Rhetorically, I'd equate the redefinition to the common atheist objection, "You're an atheist, too--you just disbelieve in one fewer god than I do."
Jim, perhaps Joe's post was too brief to prevent your misunderstanding, but you simply do not get Clouser's argument right.
Clouser is not in fact trying to argue that because whatever "is just there" is "divine" that everyone who believes in something as "just there" is "religious" because to believe in the "divine" is to be "religious".
Let me try to clear it up for you.
First, "divine" is not necessarily "deity;" that is, not necessarily a "god". So, let's forget the word "divine" and "divinity" because it seems to be interfering with the clarity of the argument. Let's call it (capital 'A') Absolute or (capital 'B') Being or (capital 'G') Ground. Whichever. The term used is irrelevant to the argument. You prefer "The Ground," so to demonstrate that the term is indifferent, and the argument is not dishonest, a meaning shift, a rhetorical maneuver, nor sloppy reasoning... we'll use The Ground.
The key issue is not what particular features or characteristics the nature of what anyone might take to be The Ground has. Rather, the key issue is what would it mean for anyone to think that something is The Ground in the same way that anyone else takes anything to be The Ground. That is, what is the common "status" of The Ground-hood, no matter if no two candidates for The Ground have any feature in common?
It's like an "official" vs. a "personal" way of defining who your sibling is. Let's say you have a sister named Jill. If I asked you who is your sibling, you could point to Jill and say "Her. She's my sibling." If I asked someone else who their sibling is, they might name all their brothers and sisters and say "Jack, Bob, Suzy, and Jane are my siblings." If I asked another person who is your sibling, they might say "Nobody. I don't have a sibling."
While each person I asked, you included, had a different answer to the question --You and these two other people didn't have any of the same siblings, and they didn't have any names in common-- so the personal way of defining who your sibling is only yielded differences, nevertheless, you all understood the "official" definition of what it is to be a sibling. Each person had a common definition for the "status" of siblinghood (viz, roughly "sharing a parent" -whatever).
Clouser is asking the "status" or "official" definition question about The Ground. He comes to the idea of a belief in something as self-existent, non-dependent, absolutely unconditioned in its 'being there'. You could use other terms to describe the same meaning. The specific terms are irrelevant.
Clouser says several things about such a belief. He shows how, in the same way that logical and mathematical axioms are affirmed, such a belief is acquired by experience of it as self-evident. He shows how such a belief is necessarily presupposed by any scientific theory. He shows how (naturalistic) materialism constitutes such a belief. He also shows that the Christian belief in the God of the Bible as The Ground is intellectually equivalent in every way as such a belief.
Clouser shows that there is nothing that makes the Christian belief in the God of the Bible as The Ground religious belief, if the belief in something as The Ground, which must be presupposed by every scientific theory, is not equally a religious belief.
The consequence (if you be coherent) of insisting on avoiding Clouser's conclusion that, for instance, "materialism is a religious belief" is to also insist that "Christian belief in God is not a religious belief." You can say that if you want, but then you're just using a dishonest rhetorical shift of meaning to make non-religious so all-encompassing that even Joe Carter can be in it.
Sorry, but your assertion falls flat.
Refreshing to see a retraction on a blog!
I'm not sure I have time for a debate right now, but for the record: The problem I have with Clouser is that he doesn't write enough about the theory of definitions and concepts (prototype theories, family resemblance, etc.). But I think that his views are more or less correct and useful. I don't agree with your criticism.
Baus,
Perhaps Clouser makes all those arguments in The Myth of Religious Neutrality,, mentioned earlier--because I'm not seeing them in the piece Joe linked to. I'll seek out a copy and broaden my reading.
I do think Clouser is less polemical in the choice of the word "divine" than you make him out to be. As I granted, though, I don't see that as an intellectual sin, but rather a point of sharp disagreement in the meaning of terms and the anthropology and epistemology of religion.
I'm still not convinced that the description "religious" or the word "religion" can be condensed to beliefs about The Ground, or "the Absolute," or any other catch-all term. ("The Force," anyone?) Even if I were convinced that all beliefs were fundamentally "religious" in this way, the ultimate response might be, "So what?" So all humans believe in The Ground. Fine. What makes the word "religion" useful or special, then?
I am wary of conflating "beliefs about religion" and "religious beliefs." They're not semantically or functionally equivalent, any more than "beliefs about Communism" are the same as "Communist beliefs."
Thanks for your patient explanation. I think we can all agree--Clouser, you, and I--that most folks go about thinking about these things without really thinking about them.
Paul, I'll even strike out the words in the original. I think it's only fair.
I wish I had more time for such things, too... School starts tomorrow, though. Alas.
Jim, I not only recommend Clouser's book "The Myth Of Religious Neutrality," but you will find particular help on the point in question in his book "Knowing With The Heart".
You can find a number of Roy Clouser's other writings online here:
http://www.freewebs.com/royclouser/longerarticles.htm
I recommend starting with:
1) Reason and Belief in God
2) Is God Eternal?
3) The Uniqueness of D's Program...
4) On the General Relation of...
5) A Sketch of D's Philosophy of Science...
6) Prospects for Theistic Science [&responses]
you wrote:
"...I'm still not convinced that the description "religious" or the word "religion" can be condensed to beliefs about The Ground, or "the Absolute," or any other catch-all term. ("The Force," anyone?)"
Again, the terms don't matter. He's talking about "anything that is taken to not depend on anything else for it's existence, and which everything else depends."
you continue:
"...Even if I were convinced that all beliefs were fundamentally "religious" in this way, the ultimate response might be, "So what?" So all humans believe in The Ground. Fine. What makes the word "religion" useful or special, then?"
The "So What" is, just as I said, that: Clouser shows that there is nothing that makes the Christian belief in the God religious belief, if the belief in something as 'not dependent on anything else for existence, and which everything else depends' which is presupposed by every scientific theory, is not equally a religious belief.
The "So What" is that Clouser's argument completely undermines the radical pretensions of naturalistic/secularistic science to religious neutrality and epistemic superiority over faith traditions! (I'm sorry, but if you don't see how HUGE that is, I can't do anything for you).
If that weren't more than enough, Clouser's argument also shows Christians how they have a unique basis for a distinctive approach to philosophy and science. (After 1700 years or more of of Christian thought struggling for such a break-through... well. It's truly amazing.)
Baus, acknowledging the inherent weakness of analogy, let me pose one anyhow.
You say that Clouser's argument destroys naturalistic pretensions to superior epistemology.
Let's grant that Clouser is right about The Ground's status and, deep in our ontological core, we are all theists.
Granting also, then, that there are multiple interpretations of The Ground's characteristics and significance, how would that affect the epistemic superiority or inferiority of any particular position?
In other words, analogously, just because all these "faith systems" start in the same place, do they all run at the same speed and cross the finish line in a dead heat?
To switch analogies, why wouldn't this argument simultaneously chop down Christian pretensions to epistemic superiority over atheism, Islam, or Buddhism? Why does this ax cut only one way?
Jim, you write:
"Let's grant that Clouser is right about The Ground's status and, deep in our ontological core, we are all theists.
uh... but that's not what Clouser is saying. He is saying, in part, that even non-theists (all of them, of varying sorts) are not therefore non-religious, specifically in the sense that they do all necessarily have a religious belief, despite the fact that their religious belief is not theistic.
See? religious belief does not equal theistic belief.
you ask:
"...how would that affect the epistemic superiority or inferiority of any particular position?
It would mean that non-theistic religious beliefs (such as materialism) are not epistemically superior by somehow being non-religious beliefs.
you say:
"...all these "faith systems" start in the same place"
Not quite. All these religiously grounded views are equally religiously grounded. None is neutral with respect to religious belief. All are equivalent with respect to a) having a religious belief, b) the manner in which that religious belief is acquired [self-evidency], and c) the way in which the given religious belief directs theory.
you ask:
"why wouldn't this argument simultaneously chop down Christian pretensions to epistemic superiority over atheism, Islam, or Buddhism?"
Because Christianity does not assert a pretension to epistemic superiority over atheism, Islam, or Buddhism on grounds of being somehow non-religious or neutral with respect to religious belief.
baus,
1. If I sound pig-ignorant, it's because Clouser's words, highlighted in an above comment, certainly make it sound like he considers everyone, at the core, a theist. Am I misreading that quote? It seems pretty clear.
2. Isn't it a little uncharitable to compare "pretentious" atheists--those who, purportedly, view atheism as intellectually superior simply by virtue of being "non-religious"--to the nicest, calmest, rational-est theists? You can't honestly think that only atheists suffer from delusions of epistemic superiority.
3. In fact, I'm trying to think of a prominent atheist who really believes that atheism is "epistemically superior" by virtue of being non-religious, rather than some other (better?) reason. Wouldn't it behoove Clouser, or Carter, or you, to show us who's guilty? Otherwise this looks like a straw man.
I'll hold off on writing more until I can find a copy of The Myth.... I'd rather read Clouser at his best. Principle of charity, and whatnot.
Jim, 1. you ask if you are misreading the following quotation as Clouser saying that everyone is a theist.
"everybody either believes in God or puts something else into the status of divinity that belongs only to God. Everyone has a religious belief, then; the major distinction is whether a person believes in the true God or a false one."
Yes, you are misreading it. Perhaps the last clause is ambiguous in isolation. Let me try to put it in context.
Consider this:
Everyone is either a theist, or a non-theist who nevertheless holds something to have the exact same status as the theist holds God to have, namely the status of self-existence. This is to believe in a "false god," even though it is not a belief in any Deity at all.
Maybe that's a little tricky saying "false god"... but the point is that nontheists, while not having any theistic belief, still believe that some nongod has God status.
2. No. I'm not calling materialists personally pretentious. I'm saying that their claim to 'the superiority of their materialistic epistemology due to its being' is non-religious is a pretentious claim.
3. Which atheists claim that their own (or any) epistemology is superior, in part due to its nonreligiousness, than any religious epistemology? Uh, which atheists don't claim this?
From the wikipedia article on Dawkins: "Dawkins himself has said that his objection to religion is not solely that it causes wars and violence, but also because it gives people an excuse to hold beliefs that are not based on evidence."
Let me put it this way, how many atheists would disagree with the assertion: "religious belief is epistemically inferior to nonreligious belief if for no other reason than (or 'among other reasons because') religious belief is religious" ? Various atheists might have differing reasons for specifically finding religiousness epistemically inferior; but I can't imagine that any of them find religiousness to be epistemically equivalent or superior to their nonreligiouness.
typing too fast. Let me try 2. again...
*I'm saying that their claim to 'the superiority of their materialistic epistemology due to its being non-religious' is a pretentious claim.
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