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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
The comprehensive and engaging introduction to contemporary Christianity, revised and updated The second edition of Understanding Christian Doctrine presents a completely updated and revised edition that builds on the most popular features of the first edition to offer a lively overview to the central beliefs of Christianity. Ian S Markham, a noted authority of Christianity, discusses the great thinkers of the Christian tradition and puts them in conversation with contemporary progressive theologies in a book that goes from Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther to Liberationist, Feminist, and Queer theologies. Designed to be a basic primer, the text is written in a manner that assumes the reader has no prior knowledge of theology or Christian doctrine. The book is designed to present the basic options in all the key areas of Christianity as well as information on how to make complex theological decisions. The author tackles all the key questions from creation to eschatology. Furthermore, Markham makes his own distinctive contribution: he argues that theodicy (traditionally seen as a major difficulty with belief) is actually a theme that links many aspects of Christian doctrine. The revised second edition includes a wealth of new information, including: * A lively and comprehensive introduction to Christianity that assumes no prior knowledge of the faith * An overview to the great thinkers of Christian tradition that puts them in conversation with progressive liberationist theologies * Suggestions that help even the most skeptical to learn to understand and possibly embrace theological assertions * Breakout boxes that explain the significance of the text's various philosophical ideas and positions The text is ideal for anyone interested in learning about the foundations of Christianity as well as new ideas about the faith. Christianity is presented in a manner that embraces the richness of the tradition and affirms the central claims of the historical creeds, while engaging with liberationist challenges to the tradition.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Preface to the Second Edition
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Clarifying the Vantage Point
1 Finding a Way In
The Social Dimension
Why Bother with the Christian Worldview?
Problems
The Next Stage
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Glossary
2 The Theistic Claim
Natural Theology
Arguments for the Existence of God
Contemporary Physics
Additional Arguments
Conclusion
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Glossary
3 The Nature of God
Alternative Approaches to Christian Doctrine
The Concept of God in the Hebrew Bible
The Classic Account of God
The Process Challenge
The Feminist Account of God
Between the Two Views
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Glossary
4 The Trinity
Sources for Theology
Biblical Roots for the Doctrine of the Trinity
Development of the Doctrine of the Trinity
Three Dangers in Interpreting the Trinity
Modern Accounts of the Trinity
Standing Back
Conclusion
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Glossary
5 The Problem of Evil and Suffering
The Different Types of Suffering and Evil
The Reason Why Suffering and Evil is a Problem
The Inadequacy of the Traditional Responses
Ivan’s Question and Critique
Doctrine as the Christian Response
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Glossary
6 Creation and the Significance of Humanity
The Scientific Narrative
The Biblical Narrative
Reconciling Different Narratives
The Fall
Standing Back
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Glossary
7 God Incarnate
Reasons for the Doctrine of the Incarnation
New Testament Witness
Sorting It Out in the Early Church
Feminist Reflections
Making Sense of the Incarnation Today
Radical Implications of the Incarnation
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Glossary
8 Dying to Sin, Living to Redemption
Biblical Roots of the Atonement
Different Theories
Problems with Atonement
Moral Authority and Forgiveness
Conclusion
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
9 The Holy Spirit and the Church
Biblical Roots of the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit
The Development of the Holy Spirit in the Early Church
The Work of the Holy Spirit within the Church
The Work of the Holy Spirit outside the Church
Ecclesiology
Biblical Images of the Church
Marks of the Church
Other Perspectives on the Church
Conclusion
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Glossary
10 Sacraments and the Life of Virtue
Definition of Sacraments
The Classic Roman Catholic Understanding
Reformation and Protestant Views
Standing Back
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Glossary
11 Religious Diversity: What is God Up To?
Other Religions as a Problem
The Pluralist Hypothesis
Exclusivism
Inclusivism
Theologians Critical of the Categories
Moving the Debate Forward
Conclusion
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Glossary
12 Hope Beyond the Grave
Accounts of Life after Death in the Different Religions
The Christian Tradition
A Redeemed Creation
Conclusion
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Glossary
13 The End of the Age
The Scientific Account
The Fundamentalist Account
Standing Back
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Glossary
14 Participating in the Conversation
Participating in the Tradition
Internet Resources
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Understanding Christian Doctrine
“Liberal and orthodox, clear and reliable, readable and illuminating, I strongly commend this book to all who are interested in modern Christian thought.”
Canon Keith Ward, University of Oxford
The second edition of Understanding Christian Doctrine presents a completely updated and revised edition that builds on the most popular features of the first edition to offer a lively overview to the central beliefs of Christianity. Ian S. Markham, a noted authority of Christianity, discusses the great thinkers of the Christian tradition and puts them in conversation with contemporary progressive theologies in a book that goes from Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther to Liberationist, Feminist, and Queer theologies. Designed to be a basic primer, the text is written in a manner that assumes the reader has no prior knowledge of theology or Christian doctrine.
The book is designed to present the basic options in all the key areas of Christianity as well as information on how to make complex theological decisions. The author tackles all the key questions from creation to eschatology. Furthermore, Markham makes his own distinctive contribution: he argues that theodicy (traditionally seen as a major difficulty with belief) is actually a theme that links many aspects of Christian doctrine.
The text is ideal for anyone interested in learning about the foundations of Christianity as well as new ideas about the faith. Christianity is presented in a manner that embraces the richness of the tradition and affirms the central claims of the historical creeds, while engaging with liberationist challenges to the tradition.
Ian S. Markham is the Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary and Professor of Theology and Ethics. Previously, he was Dean of Hartford Seminary, Connecticut and Professor of Theology and Ethics.
Understanding Christian Doctrine
Second Edition
Ian S. Markham
This second edition first published 2017© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Edition history: John Wiley & Sons Ltd (1e, 2007)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
The right of Ian S. Markham to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.
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Paperback ISBN: 9781118964736
Cover Images: Mary as Prophet “He has filled the hungry with good things…”Luke 1:53, bronze (2015), © Margaret Adams Parker, www.margaretadamsparker.comImage adapted from a photograph by B. Cayce Ramey; (background) © Ingunn B. Haslekås / Getty ImagesCover Design: Wiley
For my stylish andimpressivenieces
Nicola Johnson,Abbie Furnival,Lizzie Markham,Ellen Sowden
Preface to the Second Edition
This is the textbook with an edge. Naturally, understanding the traditional options is important. This edition aspires to ensure that is still the case. But twenty‐first‐century theology needs to be in conversation with the challenges of our age. We need to make sure that the voices of the historically invisible – women, minorities, persons of color – are heard. This is a deliberately edgy volume.
This new edition aspires to combine traditional approaches to theology with the more contemporary, identity‐focused approaches. This is the first time a textbook book has made this an explicit goal: there are plenty of texts that are traditional in approach and plenty of texts that make feminism or liberation theology central, but this is the first text to combine the two.
It has been satisfying to find colleagues in the academy appreciate the distinctive approach of this textbook. One joy of writing for a publishing house of such excellence as Wiley Blackwell is that they work extremely hard to ensure that they collect hard data on which an author can modify a book. The data showed that teachers in theology appreciated the distinctive methodology and the aspiration to show not simply the options in theology but also how one might make decisions. Therefore this feature remains central.
The data did suggest certain changes. Therefore this edition has the following additions: First, the historical description of the development of doctrine needs to be supplemented with a greater emphasis on contemporary approaches to theology, especially those emerging from feminist and liberationist perspectives. For a textbook that aspires to be “liberal” in approach, it is embarrassing that the first edition is so totally dominated by white Western men. Second, there were sections in need of improvement – for example, Moltmann’s Social Trinity needed a more sympathetic presentation. Third, the first edition appeared in 2008. Naturally, since then, debates have moved on and new questions have emerged. So a general updating was necessary.
One last change is worth highlighting. One goal of this text is to introduce the basics and model decision making. In every chapter, I become a participant in the discussion. Now my own mind has changed. So careful readers will find that there are different emphases in certain places. Perhaps the best example is Chapter 2, “The Theistic Claim.” In the first edition, I argued that faith is rationally plausible and that treating the arguments inductively should perhaps produce a person of faith. In this edition, I see the arguments as supportive of an experience that sees the transcendent all around us. This is, of course, totally part of the methodology advocated in this book. Theology is a constant life challenge. It lives with you; the questions are revisited and revised. We are exploring the most complex topic in the world; it is not surprising that we find ourselves reexamining an assumption or an approach. This is just the nature of the business.
Acknowledgments
Please allow me to start by expressing my deep gratitude to the remarkable commissioning editor at Wiley Blackwell, Ms. Rebecca Harkin. Working with Rebecca is always a delight. Thank you, Rebecca. As the manuscript passed from Rebecca into production, I was grateful for the attention provided by Felicity Marsh and Vimali Joseph. I am very grateful to a delightful Junior at Virginia Theological Seminary called Brit Bjurstrom Frazier who worked on the Index.
This revised edition would never have materialized without the hard work of Kristen Pitts. Her energy, passion, and interest helped to make sure this second edition is a distinct improvement on the first.
I am grateful to the countless students who have used this text. Their feedback provided plenty of ideas as to how to improve the book. My colleagues at Virginia Theological Seminary are important conversation partners as I shape my own theology. And as always I am grateful to the senior staff: Melody Knowles, Heather Zdancewicz, Barney Hawkins, and Katie Glover. This is the team that understands the importance of writing and creates the space for me to do it. Katherine Malloy sent me regular reminders of my writing obligations and works hard to ensure there is time for writing during the regular week. Finally, I want to thank the Board of Trustees, especially my Board Chair, Bishop Bud Shand. The gift of a year’s sabbatical created the opportunity to complete this project. Thank you.
While I was working on this second edition, we had Sophia Weber staying with us. It has been a complete honor to enjoy time with this compelling, charming, engaging young lady. I am pleased to recognize the following people who helped Sophia be the delight she is: Hannah Sternemann, Luisa Wegewitz, and Carolin Putz.
My siblings are so special, and their families bring me so much joy. So, as with the first edition, I acknowledge the gift of my delightful nieces; I am pleased to dedicate this book to Nicola, Abbie, Lizzie, and Ellen. My son, Luke, remains one of my most important conversation partners. Our shared concern for Liverpool Football Club has been a gateway into numerous other issues around ethics, God, and hope. For the gift of Luke, I am forever grateful. Finally, my wife, Lesley, is quite extraordinary. Time spent with her is always special. Her friendship and love are the most precious of gifts, for which I thank God every day.
Epiphany 2016Ian S. Markham
Introduction
We are going to embark on a journey – a journey that starts with the problems with belief and culminates with a discussion of Christian beliefs about the end of the world. The “we” here is simply the author and the reader. The reader may be in a variety of different places. Many of you will be Christians – an umbrella term that embraces considerable diversity. Some of you will be clinging on to faith – finding the orthodox story of a creator God who redeems humanity through Christ difficult to affirm. Others are firmly located in a particular tradition, for example, the Roman Catholic or Baptist traditions. Other readers are non‐Christians. Perhaps you are an atheist or agnostic who suspects that Christianity belongs to a pre‐scientific era. You might be an adherent of another faith tradition – a Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or Hindu. I have tried to write this book so we can all walk this journey together. For the agnostic or atheist, I hope this book will be a challenge. Along with reasons for the fundamental beliefs, I have attempted to provide an attractive, plausible account of the Christian faith that takes the problems seriously. For those who are in another faith tradition, I have attempted to make connections with other faith traditions – sometimes alluding to similarities or confronting key differences. By the end of the book, I trust you will understand some of the debates within Christianity and reasons why Christians talk in certain distinctive ways (e.g., about God being triune). For the Christians, I am offering a particular account of the faith, which will contrast markedly with others.
One primary goal in writing this book was to be accessible. It is aimed at the student or the intelligent lay person. At every point, there are aids to help understanding – a glossary and brief vignettes of key theologians. In each chapter, I attempt to provide an overview of Christian attitudes to the topic. So there is a map of the main arguments and issues within the Christian tradition. However, unlike most textbooks, which are exclusively descriptive, this book has an argument. It takes positions.
The reason for this is that the hardest skill for any student to learn is how to decide what she thinks is true. The risk in teaching Christian theology is that one presents the options – in a detached, fair way – and then leaves the impression that all options are equally valid and legitimate. Students find themselves becoming relativists (there are many options and no rational way of deciding among them). To counter this tendency, this book attempts both to describe positions and to decide between positions. Using the reflection questions at the end of each chapter, students are invited to disagree with my judgments. While I am countering the relativist tendency of many modern textbooks, I am not seeking to imply that I have all the right answers. God is complicated, which means doctrine is also. We need students of theology to continue to challenge the “received” answers. But we do so on the assumption that there are better and worse ways of making sense of God. We are on the quest for the truth; and our arguments are often a valuable way of discovering that truth.
Clarifying the Vantage Point
Having admitted that this book seeks to model theological judgments, it may help if I set out precisely what vantage point is taken. All of us are rooted. We are shaped by a culture, a language, and various traditions. I was born in England and became an American citizen in 2010. As an Episcopalian, I am heavily shaped by the Anglican tradition. With its affinity for natural theology, the emphasis on the Incarnation, the high view of sacraments, readers may recognize an Anglican approach in the text. More broadly the theological approach is broadly “mainline” Protestant. It celebrates the tradition while recognizing that there is much that can be learned from the present and from other cultures. It also recognizes that there are aspects of the tradition that have been wickedly oppressive. And we should use other aspects of the tradition to challenge the oppression. It also celebrates a faith that is comfortable with scientific discovery, the critical study of the Bible, and the presumption that faith is viable for the thoughtful modern person.
In summary, I argue in Understanding Christian Doctrine, for the following positions: First, natural theology is a legitimate enterprise that supports and underpins religious experience. Of the three approaches delineated in Chapter 3 (the Schleiermacherian, Barthian, and Thomist), I argue that the classical Catholic approach of Thomas Aquinas needs to be shaped by a Schleiermacherian emphasis on experience. We need to start with our shared human experience of life – an experience common to all people. Granted, this approach does not bring us to the triune God revealed in Christ, but it does lead some to a sense of the transcendent who created this world. The arguments created the possibility of a God option, which then makes sense of our experience of the transcendent.
Second, Christian doctrine is the Christian response to the problem of evil. Unifying many of the chapters is the idea that it is in the narrative of Christianity that we find the response to the mystery of evil and suffering. Traditional theodicies, I argue in Chapter 5, are insufficient. Instead the Christian response is the story of the Fall, the claim that God was in Christ dying on the cross, the action of the Spirit in the world, the gift of the sacraments, and the promise of God in the life to come. None of these explain why God allows evil and suffering. But they do locate the problem in a narrative where God takes the complete responsibility for the hurt and pain within God’s creation.
Third, this is a liberal theology. The word “liberal” needs to be reclaimed. It is not liberal in the sense of increasing skepticism about the truth claims in Christianity. The liberalism of the Anglican theologian Don Cupitt, who finally decided that even an objective God must go, is tantamount to atheism. The theologian should struggle with doctrines. In this book, I defend the Trinity and the Incarnation as indispensable aspects of the Christian understanding of God and God’s relations to the world. But this book is liberal in the sense of affirming the generous heart and disposition of Christian orthodoxy. As I argued in A Theology of Engagement, the orthodox Christian tradition is deeply committed to taking reasons seriously, learning from non‐Christian sources, and interpreting experience appropriately. This book is “liberal” in that sense. It is also liberal in the sense of wanting to learn from those more progressive theologies that are emerging (feminist and liberationist). Trying to find the balance between representing the traditional debate and including some of these neglected contemporary voices has been difficult. And there are sections where I am still not sure I have it quite right.
It is not necessary to go into further details of my argument in this book. Suffice it to say, this book is written out of the conviction that the drama of God in Christ continues to be good news for humanity. Tragically, there are many people who have encountered versions of the gospel who have been enslaved rather than liberated. The challenge is to struggle with the message and to allow the God of love, who is calling us to love each other more deeply, to emerge.
1Finding a Way In
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this chapter you should be able to
understand why some people find religion so implausible;
have a sense of some of the responses that a person of faith might make.
STRUCTURE
The Social Dimension
Why Bother with the Christian Worldview?
Problems
It Looks Like Religion is on the Way Out
Science has Displaced Religion
Metaphysics is Impossible
Agnosticism Makes More Sense
Religion is Horrid and Cruel
Religion Reinforces Patriarchy
Faith is Just a Psychological Projection
The Next Stage
Much of the world is very religious. Despite all the predictions to the contrary, our world seems to be becoming more religious rather than less. However, as an Englishman living on the east coast of America, I am aware that many students find it difficult to understand a religious worldview. So, in this opening chapter, we shall start by looking at some of the problems that a typical, thoughtful, European or American student might have with religion. Before we get to the doctrines of the Trinity or atonement, we need to understand why the religious discourse matters.
So let us start with the following questions: What makes some people atheists or agnostics and others persons of faith? This is the starting point of this book. Why do some people find it easy to believe while others find it all so incomprehensible?
The Social Dimension
Perhaps because the founders of sociology were skeptical of religion, it is often assumed that the social explanation for religion is evidence in support of atheism. Emile Durkheim’s famous critique was one of the first. In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), Durkheim argued that religion provides a socializing force. It brings people together. He establishes his argument by examining “primitive” forms of religion. However, Durkheim has no interest in simply describing the past; instead he visits the past with a view to establishing the truth about the nature of religion for the present. The central claim of the book, Durkheim explains, “is that religion is something eminently social. Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities; the rites are a manner of acting which take rise in the midst of the assembled groups and which are destined to excite, maintain or recreate certain mental states in these groups.”1 As a result, religion and morality become closely connected. Religion is society’s way of imposing certain shared moral values; this, Durkheim thought, explains why moral values seem to have a transcendent feel.
Box 1 Emile Durkheim (1858–1917)
On April 15, 1858 Emile Durkheim was born of Jewish parents in Épinal, Lorraine, in France. Early on he was recognized as exceptionally gifted. And it was not surprising that he was admitted and flourished at the École Normale Supérieure (the premier university in Paris). In 1882, he became a philosophy teacher. In 1887, he moved to Bordeaux, where he started to articulate a distinctive approach to the social sciences. And in 1913 he moved to Paris. During the First World War, he assisted with the war effort; and he also had to cope with the tragic loss of his son André, who died in 1916. Plagued by illness throughout his life and devastated by the death of his son, he died on November 15, 1917.
Whether or not Durkheim is right (and he is probably right about much), he offered an explanation for religion that recognized the power of our “socialization” to account for our worldview. Atheists and agnostics are sometimes tempted to dismiss a person’s religious beliefs as “simply a result of their upbringing.” This approach to religion has its roots in Durkheim’s sociology.
The truth, however, is that perhaps we are all “indoctrinated.” Many agnostics and atheists grew up in an agnostic and atheist environment: as children they never learned the discourse of faith. For the truth is that faith is learned. Much like language, it becomes part of the furniture of your mind. In the same way that a particular language is learned in a home, so is a particular faith discourse. In the same way that love of country is “instilled,” so is love of God.
This was a key insight of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein is a complex thinker, and disagreements about the interpretation of his work abound. However, Wittgenstein recognized that there are many different ways in which language operates. Language is used in a variety of different ways, with different “rules” governing the particular discourse (or language‐game). Subsequent commentators on Wittgenstein, for example, D.Z. Phillips, have suggested that different communities use language in different ways.2 Atheists operate within one community and use language in one way while believers operate within a different community and use language in a different way.
Box 2 Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
In Vienna, Austria, Wittgenstein was born on April 26, 1889. He was baptized and buried a Roman Catholic, although he was very sensitive to his Jewish heritage (his father’s parents had converted from Judaism to Protestantism). Wittgenstein’s academic interests started in mechanical engineering and then moved into aeronautics. It was his love of mathematics that provoked his interest in philosophy. He started work with Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) at Cambridge University. His family was extremely rich; in 1913 he inherited a fortune that he then gave away. In 1922 he published his only book, Tractatus Logico‐Philosophicus, which he believed solved all the problems of philosophy. Becoming for a short time an elementary school teacher in Austria, he returned to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1929, renouncing his earlier work and determined to revisit the primary issues. The mature Wittgenstein was published after his death in Philosophical Investigations. He died in April 1951.
So religion might well be a result of “social conditioning,” but the point is that everything is. The agnostic and atheist lack of awe is equally a result of social conditioning. The fact that we have all been indoctrinated does not mean that we cannot be rationally reflective. There are still good reasons for believing. There are better and worse forms of indoctrination.
At this point, the reader might object, “But if this is true, if we are all socially determined, then how do we explain ‘conversions’? How does one explain a conversion from faith to atheism (perhaps following the tragic death of a relative) or from Christianity to Islam or from atheism to faith?”
At this juncture, it is also necessary to introduce “reason.” As children, we learn from our parents; we learn a language, a set of values, and a religion. As we encounter different languages, values, and religions, we start to interrogate the worldview given to us by our parents. We ask questions about difference and the reasons for the differences. Language differences we cope with fairly easily; but differences of value and religion are much harder to handle. It is important to use our capacity to think and reason in these difficult areas. And when it comes to religious disagreements, we should use our minds to evaluate which religion makes more sense of the complexity of our experience. Naturally, since each person has been shaped by a multitude of different factors, the weighing by reason of the multitude of different factors (some of which are very particular to an individual’s journey) will produce different results. So when it comes to “conversion,” reason often meets social conditioning in interesting ways. Social conditioning remains significant. In the same way a person can grow up thinking in one language, so it is possible for a person to learn a second language and start thinking in that one instead. Learning a second language is difficult. Ideally you must live and submerge yourself in a different culture. But many people manage to do this and as a result start to think differently. What is true in language is also true in religion. Atheists become Christians and Christians become atheists because of the company they choose. The choice of company creates a challenge to the received worldview of their youth. As a person rationally reflects on two different worldviews, he or she makes a choice.
So a key question is what sort of group do we decide to mix with? We all come to the conversation with a certain givenness: my parents introduced me to faith. But as we grow older, so we decide to select our own conversation partners. The choice of conversation partner is crucial. So on a religious level: if I opt to find a group of Pentecostals then, it is likely, I shall slowly become a Pentecostal; if I opt for a group of Roman Catholics, then I might become a Catholic, and so on. On a political level, if I gravitate towards a group of white supremacists, then there is a danger I shall slowly become racist. However, if I opt to read, watch, and gravitate towards people sympathetic to Michael Moore, then it is likely I shall become a liberal. It is at the point of deciding who we are going to let influence us that we have certain options. And it is at this point we should read. Books open up many different worldviews. It is at this point we can give our reason a more prominent role to evaluate the evidence, explore the implications, and decide which worldview we want to let shape us. This is important: reason and arguments are important players. We need to think about who we are going to read. I should think about a disagreement provoked by reading a book written by someone with whom I am in disagreement. Just because I am conditioned (i.e., there is a certain givenness) does not mean that there are not reasons for my worldview. And as you read this book you will see that I have been shaped by a range of influences – atheists, agonostics, Muslims, Jews, and Buddhists are all important conversation partners. This book is about Christian doctrine; it wants to open up, in a sympathetic way, the Christian worldview.
Why Bother with the Christian Worldview?
A book about Christian doctrine needs to assume that the story of the Christian drama is worth examining and makes sense of the complexity of the world. However, the assumption does need some defending. In Chapter 2, we will examine the whole project of natural theology and the arguments for the existence of God. However, in the rest of this chapter we will describe and respond to some of the main reasons that people find faith rather implausible.
Problems
It Looks Like Religion is on the Way Out
If you are sitting in Germany or the Netherlands, then it looks as though religion is in trouble. Pop into a church and you will find it a gathering place for the elderly. Anyone who is forty years old or younger has better things to do with their Sundays. The secularization thesis – whose most able contemporary defender is Steve Bruce – seems to be vindicated.
There are various versions of the secularization thesis. One popular version states that with the rise of modernity, science, and technology, the premodern nature of religion has become increasingly apparent. Where gods and spirits explained the weather, we now have the science of meteorology. Where witch doctors used to heal, antibiotics now cure. As modernity spreads across the world, so religion will decline. A more sophisticated version stresses the problem of socialization. Steve Bruce writes:
We may want to explain the secularity of some elite groups (such as professional scientists) by the impact of science and rationalism, but to understand the mass of the population it is not self‐conscious irreligion that is important. It is indifference. The primary cause of indifference is the lack of religious socialization and the lack of constant background affirmation of beliefs.3
So, for Bruce, the problem is that people have just stopped caring; they have stopped being interested in religion.
However, the secularization thesis is not supported by the data. Statistically, Asia, the Middle East, South America, and Africa are all robustly religious, even though they have McDonalds, satellite television, and increasingly modern medicine. The United States remains deeply religious. A virtually unchanged 40 percent of Americans sit in church every week (or so they report), and almost all of them insist that their faith is vitally important.4 Even in Europe we find many people believing even if they do not belong to any particular church. Grace Davie has documented the ways in which religious life in Europe seems to be “mutating” but not disappearing; she writes,
For particular historical reasons (notably the historic connections between Church and State), significant numbers of Europeans are content to let both churches and churchgoers enact a memory on their behalf (the essential meaning of vicarious), more than half aware that they might need to draw on the capital at crucial times in their individual or their collective lives. The almost universal take up of religious ceremonies at the time of death is the most obvious expression of this tendency; so, too, the prominence of the historic churches in particular at times of national crisis or, more positively, of national celebration. Think, for example, of the significance of European churches and church buildings after the sinking of the Baltic ferry Estonia, after the death of Princess Diana or after the terrifying events of 11 September 2001.5
Countries with a church tax system continue to collect revenue, even if the donors do not actually attend. And when a crisis erupts, argues Davie, churches are suddenly “used” as a mechanism of coping with the trauma. Although this might not be a particularly demanding expression of it, the draw to a religious life is still very much there. It is undoubtedly true that modernity has not created thousands of atheists and agnostics. Scratch a European and you will find underneath the apparently indifferent exterior a person interested in “New Age” movements and “spirituality.” The few atheists and agnostics assume that most of their friends are just like them. This is not true.
Nevertheless, there is a mood shift. Charles Taylor’s study The Secular Age is a quest to answer the following question: “Why was it virtually impossible not to believe in God in, say, 1500 in our Western society, while in 2000 many of us find this not only easy, but even inescapable?”6 His answer is complicated. But, in summary, he sees a shift from a state where the self and the world almost merge (the self is porous) to a state in which our mind is independent from the world (the self is buffered). The result, he explains, is our immanent frame. We are stuck in a world where the meaning is determined by our mind (rather than found in the external world), where the natural world is largely autonomous (with God at best outside the system), providence and ethics are grounded in the design of the machine, and our horizon is now confined to the immediate. We have lost our metaphysical self‐confidence. But as we have already seen from the work of Grace Davie, religious is just below the surface. And Taylor suspects this is because we find this immanent frame hard. We find the horizon limited.
So let us concede there is in certain countries in the West and parts of the United States (mainly coastal and urban America) a mood that finds uncomplicated believing difficult. Nevertheless, even here, there is still considerable interest and even sympathy to faith. It is quite wrong to see religion on the way out; it is much more complicated than that.
Science has Displaced Religion
Nevertheless, my agnostic conversation partner might retort, “Since science has explained the world far more effectively than religion ever could, is it not the case that religion ought to be disappearing?”
It is true that the story of the religion and science debate often looks like that. Along came the Copernican revolution and the church – on the basis of Aristotle (384 BCE–322 BCE) – opposed it. Galileo provided decisive observational evidence that the earth is spinning around the sun;7 and for stating and maintaining this, until forced to recant, was placed under house arrest by the Roman Catholic Church. Along came Charles Darwin, with his elegant hypothesis of natural selection that contradicts the historicity of Genesis 1, and the church offered implausible alternative accounts, such as the young earth hypothesis or the suggestion that the earth was created with the appearance of age.
It is undoubtedly true that overall the church did not react wisely to the story of science. In my view, it created a needless battle. We shall see in Chapter 2 how the new physics has proved to be a friend of religion. The church should have never worried about the cosmology of the universe: it was mainly the authority of Aristotle which was at stake; and although Aristotle is important, he is not that important. As we shall see in Chapter 6, we should have never argued with science on Genesis 1. The Victorian church seems to have lost sight of the genre of the creation stories. When God said “Let there be light,” we shouldn’t imagine a big mouth uttering words. Instead we see that the creation is brought about by the words of God, which means that through creation we can see God disclosing Godself. The genre of the creation story is closer to poetry: it was never intended as a historical account.
Science, I shall argue in Chapter 2, needs theism (a belief in a personal God). But for now, we shall note that the charge is definitely not proven.
Metaphysics is Impossible
Metaphysics is literally “after the physics.” The term was originally used by Aristotle. However, in this context, we are using the term to represent all attempts to describe ultimate reality. It was Thomas Huxley who first coined the expression “agnostic” in the nineteenth century. He explained,
When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker, I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until at last I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure that they had attained a certain “gnosis” – had more or less successfully solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion … So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of “agnostic”. It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the “gnostic” of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our Society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the other foxes.8
Box 3 Thomas Huxley (1825–1895)
Huxley was born in Ealing, London, on May 4, 1825. His father could only afford to pay for him to attend school for two years. However, thanks to Huxley’s passionate interest in reading, he managed to obtain a scholarship to study at Charing Cross Hospital. Trained as a surgeon, he travelled around the world in the navy collecting marine invertebrates. When Charles Darwin published Origins of Species, Huxley became his most outspoken supporter. In June 1860, he was the respondent to Archbishop Samuel Wilberforce. He is best known for his contributions in science, but he also wrote widely on politics, religion, and ethics. He died on June 29, 1895.
In popular usage the word “agnostic” often means unsure. Huxley, however, believes it is impossible for puny little people to know about ultimate reality. Here we are in the middle of space–time, stuck on a small planet in an insignificant solar system, which is one among many solar systems. How on earth (pun intended) could we ever work out with any meaningful confidence what the source of all this is like? Huxley insisted that the only proper answer is to surrender to our ignorance. We cannot and never will know.
Again, a full response to this will be developed in Chapter 2. For now let us think a little about Huxley’s expectations for knowledge. Let us try a thought exercise: imagine, if you can, your brain on a laboratory bench attached to a powerful computer. Imagine further that there are five leads (one for each sense) attached from your brain to the computer. Let us suppose that this computer generates the impression of your body (your physical appearance) and then all the subsequent experiences that your body enjoys. Let us further imagine that the computer program is interactive: so when your mind makes a decision, the experiences generated by the computer change. Now consider the following question: is it possible that this could be the case? Can you disprove the possibility that your mind is not attached to a computer and everything you experience is just a computer‐generated experience?
Now of course it is possible that this is true. But no one believes it is. There are some possible explanations for reality that we need to exclude because they are so extremely improbable. It is true the external world might not exist, but we all know it does. And we certainly all behave as if it does.
There are many complex events, of which we are right in the middle, that we attempt to explain. We attempt to formulate a hypothesis to make some sense of the event, for example, the nature of the brain, the mystery of love, and the powerful bonds between a parent and a child. Just because it is complicated and we are part of what we are trying to explain, we do not simply surrender to agnosticism. It is true that there are many possible explanations for these things. It is also true that complete certainty is impossible, but we can still distinguish between accounts that are more likely and less likely.
One sickness that pervades modernity was this absurd expectation for knowledge – if we cannot be completely and utterly sure then we cannot claim to know.9 Alasdair MacIntyre in Whose Justice? Which Rationality?10 has described the damage that this sickness has caused. Many Europeans reasoned thus:
Knowledge depends on complete certainty.
We cannot be certain of anything – including whether there is an external world and what is true in metaphysics.
Therefore we have no knowledge.
With this reasoning, European culture invented relativism. Each culture has different beliefs; there is no way of knowing which culture has the true beliefs; therefore we must just resign ourselves to our ignorance and culturally conditioned beliefs.
The big mistake underpinning relativism is an unreasonable expectation for knowledge – the quest for complete certainty. Where did this absurd expectation for knowledge come from? Most historians of ideas blame Descartes (1596–1650). Living in the seventeenth century, he was responsible for raising in an acute way the whole modern problem of epistemology. In his Meditations on First Philosophy (1641),11 Descartes set out on his quest for a sure foundation for all knowledge claims. He starts the first meditation by asking whether the external world exists and decides that he cannot exclude the possibility that he is dreaming. In the second meditation he reflects on the nature of mathematics and logic. Can he be sure that 2 + 2 = 4? He decides that he cannot be sure because it is possible that a malignant demon is tampering with his mind. (Incidentally, at this point Descartes is in deep trouble because a malignant demon that is tampering with his rational processes means that he cannot any longer have any confidence in the power of reason and deduction and therefore he can’t rationally justify any further steps in his argument.) Nevertheless, on he goes. So is there anything about which Descartes can be certain? After much thought he decides that he is sure of one proposition (a proposition is a fact‐asserting sentence). He is sure that he – Descartes – doubts everything. Hence he arrives at his famous statement: cogito ergo sum – I think therefore I am.
Box 4 René Descartes (1596–1650)
Descartes was a Frenchman born in 1596 near Tours. With an initial Jesuit education, he discovered a passion for mathematics. He trained in law and then joined the Dutch military. He started writing in 1619, ranging widely in his themes: he wrote on optics, meteorology, and geometry. But it was when he moved to Amsterdam that he started work on his best known work, Discourse on the Method (1637), which was followed by Meditations on the First Philosophy (1641). In 1649, Queen Christina of Sweden asked him to become a philosophy tutor in Stockholm. However, his health could not cope with the demands being placed upon him. He died in 1650.
Descartes achievement was to set up an impossible standard for knowledge – a standard that his own argument does not reach. One does not know until one is completely sure. If one works with this standard for knowledge, then it is not surprising that one does not know very much. Everything is in trouble: science, knowledge that another loves me, mental activity, and of course metaphysics.
Knowledge claims must make certain assumptions. Science assumes both the existence of the external world and that this world is intelligible. So every scientific hypothesis could be doubted. However, we find ourselves persuaded of a scientific hypothesis (for example the rather elegant hypothesis of natural selection to explain the fossil record and the development of life on earth) because of its explanatory power. A good hypothesis explains the data in a simple (without recourse to complicating entities or improbable factors) and comprehensive way.
On one level, the claim that “God is” can be treated much like a scientific hypothesis. As we shall see in Chapter 2, we live in a complex world. We need to explain the reality of love, the order in nature, our religious experience, and our sense of moral obligation. The best explanation for this complex data will, I suggest, be the claim that God exists.
Agnosticism Makes More Sense
Where problem number three stresses the impossibility of metaphysics, this problem wants to stress the positive attractions of agnosticism. Even allowing for the promise in the next chapter that theism will be presented as the best explanation for the complex data of the world, it still leaves many questions unanswered. There are many religions in the world – which one has the truth? Is the experience of God an Allah, a Trinity, a Brahma, or a Buddha‐Nature?
The problem here can be illustrated by looking at the following thought exercise. Imagine you are sitting in the middle of a large room. Around the edge of this room is one representative of each of the major religious traditions in the world. Along with the major traditions – Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews, Christians, and Muslims – some of the smaller and more recent traditions – Ba’hais, Mormons, and New Age advocates – are represented. Each person is given half a day to present his or her tradition. Your task is to decide which tradition is true. Each person is a superb and effective communicator; so each tradition has an equal chance. How would you decide which one is true?12
The difficulty is that even if (and this remains a big if) one can argue for some divine reality, we are still left with the problem that we “don’t know” which religion best represents the interests of the divine.
Now thinking about this problem introduces another dimension to being “religious.” Reasons are clearly central. However, it is equally important to recognize the centrality of practices. A decision for faith is not a simply a matter of belief. Religion has as much to do with practice as belief. It was Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) who saw this most closely with his famous wager. The argument breaks down into five steps.
Box 5 Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
In his short life of thirty‐nine years, Pascal shaped the disciplines of mathematics, science, and philosophy. Educated by his eccentric father, Pascal exhibited a natural capacity for mathematics. After his father died, Pascal was required to administer his father’s estate, which he combined with an interest in scientific experimentation and continuing to make developments in geometry and philosophy. His best known philosophical works are Pensées (published 1842) and Provincial Letters (published 1657).
Let us assume that the agnostic is right and that we cannot be sure if there is a God.
Pascal starts from the place of the agnostic. He is assuming, as John Hick puts it, “epistemological agnosticism” (i.e., there is no rational way of knowing for sure whether God is or is not).13
Nevertheless the agnostic must make a choice.
Now this is Pascal’s insight. A decision must still be made. The reason why a decision is forced is because faith is to be practiced. And with practices you cannot be agnostic. So, for example, I am either going to pray or not pray. If I try to decide not to decide, then I end up not praying. Or I am going to go to church or not go to church. If I decide not to decide, then I don’t go to church. All agnostics behave like atheists. They in effect make a decision. So Pascal explains,
Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.14
Embedded in the above quotation is the rest of the argument, which then runs as follows:
If you opt for unbelief and get it right, then you will have extinction; if you opt for unbelief and get it wrong, then you risk damnation.
If you opt for belief and get it wrong, then you will get extinction; if you opt for unbelief and get it right, then you will get eternal life.
So gamble on happiness: you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Much has been made of the problems with the argument. Pascal assumes that there is really only one religious option, but this ignores the sheer range and diversity of religions in the world. Many faithful believers are unhappy with faith being turned into a prudent gamble. However, his major challenge to the agnostic remains: faith is to do with behavior. With behavior you cannot be agnostic.
Agnostics like to imagine they are in between atheism and belief. However, Pascal points out to them that this is largely an illusion. Agnostics behave like atheists: they like to imagine all the options are still open, but in terms of behavior they neither go to church nor pray. They live like atheists. Agnosticism only makes sense if atheism is true.
Naturally this still leaves the problem embedded in the thought exercise. Religious diversity is a major challenge. In Chapter 9, we will look at the challenge of religious diversity in some detail. Suffice to say for now, it is important to remember that there is a fundamental agreement across religious traditions: they all agree that atheism is mistaken. And when it comes to the disagreement, it is very easy for us to imagine that each religion is completely separate from every other religion. The truth is that there is endless interplay and development between traditions. Judaism gave birth to Christianity and Islam. Hinduism is the root of Buddhism. Islam and Hinduism shaped Sikhism. Furthermore, given the complexity within each religion, there is hardly a religious idea that is not to be found within each tradition. So, for example, Hinduism is often depicted as pantheistic (God is in all), while Christianity is seen as theistic (there is a personal God separate from creation). Yet Hinduism has theistic strands and there are Christians who are pantheistic in their understanding of God.
As a lifestyle option, agnosticism does not exist. And I want to suggest that the problem of religious diversity is not a decisive argument for agnosticism. Indeed, the universal witness of the religions that there is a transcendent entity is a major challenge to the agnostic.
Religion is Horrid and Cruel
For some critics of religion, the problem with religion is less intellectual and more moral. The problem with religion, these critics complain, is that often it is linked with violence. A.N. Wilson states the problem thus:
Religion is the tragedy of mankind. It appeals to all that is noblest, purest, loftiest in the human spirit, and yet there scarcely exists a religion which has not been responsible for wars, tyrannies and the suppression of the truth. Marx described it as the opium of the people; but it is much deadlier than opium. It does not send people to sleep. It excites them to persecute one another, to exalt their own feelings and opinions above those of others, to claim for themselves a possession of the truth. If we read St Paul’s famous hymn to Charity in his Epistle to the Corinthians, we see an incomparably exalted view of human virtue. “Charity suffereth long, and is kind. Charity vaunteth not itself … rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.” When we consider the behavior of the huge preponderance of religious people and religious organizations in the history of mankind, we come to realize that Religion is the precise opposite of what St Paul calls Charity. Religion, far from suffering long, makes a point of establishing itself as the sole highway to salvation, and brooks no dissent from those who have the temerity to disagree with it. Religion is not kind; it is cruel. Religion does not rejoice in the truth. In fact, all the major religions go out of their way to suppress the truth and to label those who attempt to tell the truth as heretics. Religion vaunteth itself, is puffed up; but worse: by trying to bring good things to pass, it brings very evil things to pass. Like a human psychopath it is a war with all its own best instincts, because it knows, if these impulses were followed, it would destroy itself.15
Wilson goes on to document countless illustrations of the cruelty of religion: the damaging role that religion has played in Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine; the history of religious wars, the intolerance towards those who disagree with a religion (especially the Salman Rushdie controversy), and the reluctance of the church to take progressive ethical positions (e.g., on the rights of women – see the next problem). The temptation is to conclude that religion is a deeply destructive entity: even if the world is not going to outgrow religion, it does not deserve any encouragement.
Such is the power of religion, it is important to recognize that religion is often a force for evil in the world. For a person of faith, the study of religious history is deeply painful. One cannot evade the history of Christian anti‐Semitism or the brutality of the Crusades or the propensity of the church to support patriarchy rather than justice. One must resist the temptation to distinguish between “true religion,” which does not do these wicked things, and “bad religion,” which is religion being used by political and economic entities for unjust ends. It is clear that many of the most devout were involved in heinous acts. Popes who no doubt prayed and loved Jesus did authorize the Crusades; Muslims who prayed five times daily have become suicide bombers and blown up many innocent people; and it was Bible‐believing Christians in the Dutch Reformed Church who constructed a biblical justification of apartheid. Sincere people of faith have behaved in extremely wicked ways.
Yet in the same way it would be wrong to condemn secularism and secularists because of the abuses of Stalin’s regime, so one should not condemn religion because of its evil and violent past. The truth about the evils exercised in the name of religion should not obscure us from other truths. Religion has, for example, provided us with Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu, and Mother Teresa. Religion has inspired amazing music and poetry. Religion has helped millions of people cope with seemingly unbearable tragedy. Religion has underpinned the campaign for civil rights and justice. Although it is true that if religion did not exist, we would not have had the Crusades; it is also true that we would not have had the concept of human rights.16
