Author Archives: Elizaphanian

About Elizaphanian

Rector of West Mersea

Thresholds for a sensible conversation with an atheist

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I’ve been musing – in between sneezes and christmas pudding – about what is needed to have an intelligent conversation with an atheist; that is, a conversation which has some chance of fostering growth in understanding on either side. There are general things to do with civil debate and openness to changing of minds, but there are some more specific needs as well. So I thought I’d jot these down (I’m sure an atheist could come up with some reciprocal ones from their side!).

1. The atheist needs to either understand, or be willing to be taught, the concept of idolatry. This is not new-fangled ‘liberalism’, this is the main root of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In brief, God is not a member of a class – any class. That class can be ‘existing things’ or ‘beings’ or ‘good’ – all of these fail to capture God. So often the understanding of God being rejected is not one that a moderately trained theologian could accept. As Denys Turner puts it, the atheist hasn’t even reached the ‘theologically necessary levels of denial’. A usual response at this stage is to say ‘well you and the theologians might believe that, but most Christians (Muslims/Jews) don’t!’ Well, that may or may not be true, but it’s a juvenile clouding of the issues. If we’re going to have a serious debate then we need to engage with the best exemplars of the tradition, the ones with most influence. It would be like saying that science is evil because of Mengele’s experiments.

2. Related to this, the atheist needs to have a broader sense of historical perspective that that dominated by post-Enlightenment controversies. If the arguments for the existence of God or the truth of Christianity are all centred on, eg, literalistic claims in Genesis vs geological evidence then we’re not going to get very far. Those arguments were generated by the scientific revolution, that is, the theological force of Ussher or Paley is within an already scientific epistemology. If that epistemology is not accepted – in other words if there is an epistemology with much broader and deeper roots in the Christian tradition being employed – then those arguments are frankly not very interesting. A different way of saying this is that you don’t have to be a fundamentalist to be a Christian – indeed the overwhelming majority of Christians in time and space are NOT fundamentalists, and it would be helpful if this were acknowledged by the atheist.

3. Putting that same point in a different register: the atheist needs to understand the grammar of religious faith, that is, that religious faith doesn’t function as an inadequate precursor of scientific investigation. The role that the language of belief plays within the life of a Christian is not at all like that which the language of science plays in the life of (say) a biologist. It is integrated with a much broader way of life. Unless that is understood then the conversation never begins. Practice gives the words their sense; religious believers do things with words!

I think if these three elements were in place then a much more interesting conversation could result. I’d be interested to know what the equivalent requests would be from the atheist side. Possibly: “don’t assume you have to believe in God to be good”?

Two good articles on the financial bust

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I read various economic blogs regularly (another aspect of my general geekiness) and thought you might be interested in these two articles, as they are comparatively clear about our current mess.

Number one: “The ticking time bomb in the U.S. banking system is not resetting subprime mortgage rates. The real problem is the contractual ability of investors in mortgage bonds to require banks to buy back the loans at face value if there was fraud in the origination process. And, to be sure, fraud is everywhere…”

Number two: “When big operators take on a lot more risk than they otherwise might — they drive faster, perhaps, because they know their car has anti-lock brakes — it tends to raise the danger stakes for the system as a whole. Millions of dollars of losses can break the bank at a few unlucky firms. Billion — or even trillion — dollar failures can bring down the whole house of cards, especially given the dense network of dependent relationships that exists in the global financial arena.”

I do think the sub-prime fiasco is the trigger for the fourth turning.

A point of clarification on conscience

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Tim said in a comment “both sides in the current dispute claim to be [following their conscience], and yet you seem to be saying that somehow the ‘conservative’ side isn’t doing it right – or, they’re drawing the wrong conclusion from what they’re hearing. I’m just not sure on what basis you make that judgement, Sam – because make no mistake, it is a judgement.”

I think I need to expand on this, because I don’t want to argue that holding the conservative position is necessarily against conscience – I don’t believe that it is – I just think that one form of the conservative stance (possibly the dominant and most vocal one) seems unsupportable (that is, those who use this argument are precisely ‘not doing it right’).

I think there is a difference between these two positions (both forms of the conservative perspective):
1) the expression of homosexual desire is sinful; it is destructive of the soul and pernicious; and Scripture and tradition have unanimously taught us this from the beginning;
and
2) the expression of homosexual desire is contrary to Scripture, and therefore it is sinful, destructive of the soul and pernicious.

The first recognises some reality beyond itself, to which Scripture is a revelatory witness, and therefore implicitly recognises that IF it could be established that the expression of homosexual desire (in the context of permanent life-long union etc) were not sinful, destructive, pernicious etc THEN we would need to reinterpret Scripture. This I think is a position which is tenable and responsible and ‘on the same playing field’ as those who precisely want to argue that such a re-interpretation is right and of God. The community both for and against the change can thereby discuss what is right and true about Scripture and the expression of homosexuality and seek an understanding of God’s will. This, I think, is the position that Rowan is defending.

The second, however, does not recognise anything outside of “Scripture”; which then becomes reified and absolutised. There is no place from which it is possible to argue that – for example – Scripture is silent on the specific subject being argued about (which is a view I am sympathetic towards). It’s not possible to interpret Scripture creatively or in a new way. I see this approach as a) a breach with traditional forms of interpretation in and of itself and b) highly prone to subordination to political objectives. This seems to me to be the position adopted by a great many people in the debate, and I don’t recognise it as defensibly Anglican. (It may be defensibly Christian, but of a non-Anglican sort).

As I see it, the more thoughtful and reflective conservatives are arguing option 1), and Rowan in particular is arguing it from a position (assuming he hasn’t changed his mind) which doesn’t agree with option 1) but is ‘in the same ballpark’. That is, Rowan personally believes that our view of Scripture needs to change and develop, but that this change needs to be done in the right way – and he’s now embedded in an argument for that right way being established (and he sees the establishment of that right way as being more important than the public acceptance of LGBT ministry). I’m sure that what Rowan would like to see is a) an establishment of the Windsor Covenant, followed by b) an endorsement by that covenanted community – at some point down the line – of the acceptability of LGBT relationships etc.

My problem is with the advocates of option 2) which have, from my perspective, an anachronistic, Modernist and idolatrous understanding of Scripture, ie I think they’re fundamentalists. That’s why my longer post was about ‘The authority of Scripture’ as such – it’s independent of what position is held on the current dispute. It’s possible to hold both a conservative position and to hold that view of Scripture. It’s also possible – of course – that I’ve got it wrong. But that’s why the blog is so useful – I can rely on people pointing out errors of fact and logic in my position!!