Cornel West on Relativism and Scepticism

Yet to give in to sophomoric relativism (“Anything goes” or “All views are equally valid”) is a failure of nerve, and to succumb to wholesale scepticism (“There is no truth”) is a weakness of the will and imagination.

– Cornel West, The Cornel West Reader (1999), p. xvii

Moral relativism (‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are not a fixed, universal list) and epistemological scepticism (we can’t really know the ‘Truth’) are often thought to be the default position of many. This sentence from the popular African-American intellectual Cornel West (pictured) is instructive in two ways for the Christian wanting to speak to this issue.

First, he rightly points out that wholesale relativism and scepticism are a way of being intellectually lazy and morally indifferent. To shrug your shoulders and say ‘all views are pretty much the same’ or ‘there’s really no way of telling who is right or wrong, better or worse’, is a cop-out. It is a way of not even entering into philosophy. It is a way of not even taking seriously the question or the views of others.

The lesson here is to push back firmly on anyone who holds to scepticism or relativism, and to try to find a way of challenging the relativist or the skeptic out of their apathy. In popular discourse and general conversation with people around us, I think this is an important activity. It is easy to be a relativist or a sceptic. It takes effort (West would say it takes courage and strength) to attempt to hold to conclusions and to believe that other people are wrong in certain ways.

Second, West’s quote reminds me that to be accused of wholesale relativism or scepticism is a serious charge. It effectively amounts to calling someone indifferent, apathetic, and intellectually disengaged. I suspect that these labels get thrown around today by Christians in a careless way; in a way that can be disrespectful and unloving to our conversation partners. Many intellectuals are accused of holding to these cut-and-dry positions, but know full well the implications which West has spelled out above and so have worked out more sophisticated and nuanced positions.

If calling someone a relativist or a sceptic is synonymous with calling them lazy, then it would be unloving to reduce others positions to this when they have deliberately tried to avoid this caricature. Perhaps it would be fruitful for Christians to rethink how to disagree with those who question the strong epistemological and moral claims of Christianity without first relying on the terms relativist or skeptic.

To me, this seems like a more loving thing to do, and a way which does not preclude the Christian being corrected in some way, or changing their mind on some issue.

What do you think of West’s quote? Do Christians rely too much on charging those who disagree with them of skepticism or relativism?

I’m Gonna Let it Shine…

Jesus once said:

Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

– Matthew 5.16

Some other people have said:

It is striking that the early Quaker abolitionists and Christian pacifists in different ages had a public impact precisely by witness rather than by argument according to ‘publicly acceptable’ criteria.

– William Placher, Unapologetic Theology: A Christian Voice in a Pluralistic Conversation (1989), p. 167.

The world’s cynicism and unbelief make the courage, continuity, and conviction of anybody, even ordinary people, appear to be adventurous and heroic. An unbelieving world can make a saint out of anybody who dares to be faithful.

– Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens (1989), p. 58.

In a culture full of doubt as to whether there is a God who loves and cares for the world, godliness helps to keep alive the plausibility of Christian conviction.

– John Stackhouse Jr., Humble Apologetics (2002), p. 224.

If we just care enough, God is in safe hands with us – despite everything.

– Etty Hillesum, died November 30, 1943, Auschwitz, Poland.

Atheism is So Last Year

There is an interesting opinion piece in today’s Sydney Morning Herald in which Gerard Henderson suggests that popular atheism is not nearly as radical or dangerous as some of it’s chief protagonists like to think it is. Here’s a brief excerpt:

The Age columnist Catherine Deveny mocks Christianity without an attempt at scholarship or analysis. She cannot concede that some of the finest minds in Western civilisation were followers of Christ. Nor can she demonstrate how it is that able politicians such as Rudd or Costello are mere fools when it comes to their religious beliefs.

Knee-jerk atheism is predictable, boring, unadventurous and common. Investigating religion for yourself and not treating those who profess a faith as deluded simpletons is new, exciting and sophisticated. Actually, it’s not that new. But it is exciting and sophisticated. Read the whole piece here.  Also, check out this other opinion piece in today’s Herald to see a philosopher at work. Pun intended.

Does Christianity Have Faults?

Particularly when it comes to Christianity, the past is often seen by outsiders as merely a collection of tableaux that sit fixed in one’s mind as stark moral lessons: Christians mounted bloody Crusades against noble Muslims; Christians burned hapless women as witches; Christians foolishly resisted scientists such as Galileo and Darwin; Christians oppressed women and spoiled sex; Christians overran and dominated native peoples; Christians abused the earth. For many of our neighbours, the Christian past is simply a chamber of cultural horrors…Our civilization has been deeply marked by Christianity – by it’s faults but also by its gifts and glories.

– John Stackhouse Jr., Humble Apologetics (2002), p. 50-51.

In an apologetic conversation, an impasse is often reached on the issue of the past faults, failings and mistakes of Christianity – incidents like those mentioned in the above quote. The impasse occurs because Christians find it hard to unreservedly say ‘That kind of Christianity is wrong’ and those outside the faith have no desire to align themselves with a community whose tradition includes such shames.

On the Christian side of things, I think this occurs because Christians are not sure whether they are able to say that Christianity has its faults, or whether they need to bite a bullet and maintain that Christianity is perfect. We are worried that by criticising Christianity, we will be paving the way for serious objections to make ground – claims such as Christianity does not communicate the truth about God, the Bible is not trustworthy, Jesus’ words do not give life, there is no God.

Perhaps what this points out is the need to distinguish between Christianity construed of as a cultural movement, and Christianity construed of as the work of God in action. With this distinction in place, a criticism of peoples, times, activities, and agendas, does not translate so easily into a criticism of Jesus’ words or lead to claiming that God doesn’t exist. To run these two notions together makes it impossible for Christians to criticise Christianity (or to listen to criticism), since, on this construal of things, to concede that Christianity has flaws supposes that an implicit criticism of Jesus or God is entailed, rather than merely a criticism of the particular activity of a historically located group. Looking at the tragic list above that Stackhouse recites, it seems to be that a lesson from church history is that when Christians are suspicious of criticism from within and closed to criticism from without, awful things are able to be done under the guise of Christianity.

This all can be reduced to the question: As Christians, are we comfortable talking about the faults, failings and weaknesses of Christianity as a cultural movement? Are we comfortable talking about Christianity as being (in a sense) a cultural movement rather than (unreservedly) the workings of God? Are we open to others shining a light on supposed faults, failings and weaknesses? Or do we believe that Christianity is beyond criticism?

For a movement that began as a Jewish man warned Israel, ‘Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven has come near’, I have my suspicions.

Atheism vs. Theism: The Wrong Paradigm?

 

Controversy over Christianity is almost never conducted in the terms in which it is usually discussed by professional apologists, namely, “theism versus atheism”. The options are far wider that these anachronistic choices – choices that smack of Enlightenment-era European debates. To be sure, one might encounter nowadays a discussion between a theist and an atheist, but the theist could well be a Muslim, a Sikh, or a Hindu and the atheist a Thervadin Buddhist, philosophical Confucianist, or postmodern pragmatist. More commonly, however, the question is not, “Do you believe in God?” but “Which God or gods do you believe in?” – John Stackhouse Jr., Humble Apologetics (2002), p. 12

“Are you an atheist or a theist?” In the above excerpt, John Stackhouse suggests that this question is not as important as is usually thought. Debates about religion, faith, philosophy and worldview often come back to this question, assuming that it is the fundamental question that needs to be answered, and that it therefore ought to have a kind of priority over other questions. The thought goes: if we can just sort out whether you are an atheist or a theist and why, then we will be in a better position to move forward, or will know the right kinds of questions to be asking one another. Stackhouse calls this whole paradigm into question, suggesting that this kind of foundationalist thinking is a relic from Enlightenment-era thinking, which we need not see as the best way to discuss worldview and faith.

Stackhouse is saying that although atheism is a more abstract category than Marxism, and theism is a more abstract concept than Christianity, it need not be given a priority as the first issue that needs to be settled, and it need not take up residence as the focus of the debate between worldviews. This thought resonates with me because I see atheism and theism as being commitments which are entailed in other ideologies, where the ideologies themselves are more commonly the objects of decision. To overstate things – it is more common, and perhaps more natural, for people to choose an ideology first, and then to discover that atheistic or theistic commitments are bound up in what they have chosen, and to choose this ideology for reasons not necessarily linked with the atheism vs. theism debate. Most people choose Christianity (or whatever) not because they have first been convinced of theism, and most people choose Marxism (or whatever) not because they have first been convinced of atheism.

To dig a little deeper, perhaps this is because atheism and theism are too abstract to set real agendas, but too large to be ignored. If this is so, it explains why almost all worldviews have something to say about atheism or theism, and goes someway to explaining the plurality within each camp. To focus just on atheism: In a world without God, Marxists are able argue for the unique importance of the political and the urgent need for economic and social change; Feminists are able to argue for the contingency of the status quo and in some cases the fluidity of gender; Continental philosophers are able to argue for the relativity of value; Analytic philosophers are helped in arguing for empiricism as the most reliable way of knowing; and popular individualist consumerism in able to hold comfortably to beliefs in happiness as the supreme good, and the self as being of supreme importance.

This is all very cursory, but the point I’m gesturing towards is that atheism or theism can be employed for various worldviews and philosophies to bolster their own ideology. The five approaches I have just mentioned are starkly different – Marxists are not renowned for getting along with individualist-consumerists and Analytic philosophers are not renowned for getting along with Continental philosophers. It is not that these approaches have reached a consensus that God does not exist, but that atheism is a helpful, but by no means dominant, facet of their worldviews which are ultimately driven by other agendas.

Given this, Christian apologetics and conversation with others ought not to proceed by trying to settle the atheism/theism debate as though the whole ball game was riding on it. Much better to attempt to get inside of another worldview, and compare it’s beliefs, hopes and agenda with the words and works of Jesus of Nazareth. This makes the potential apologetic conversation much more complex, as the discussion has moved from comparing two abstract ideas, to comparing one worldview (Christianity) with a seemingly infinite plurality of others. It makes the conversation more exciting, since if atheism vs. theism is not the foundational issue, then it means you may begin to get towards the heart of things – the reasons people have chosen one ideology over another, and why they have done this. For a funny take on all this – check out how quickly the comedian Rick Gervais was able to dismiss Christianity once the conversation was framed in terms of atheism or theism, rather than the agenda, beliefs and hopes of Christianity compared with another ideology.

How Public Ought Apologetics Be?

Justification is addressed to those who disagree with us, and therefore it must always proceed from some consensus, from premises we and others publicly recognize as true.” – John Rawls, ‘Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical’ (1985)

When procrastinating philosophy students compile their lists of the best philosophers of the Twentieth-Century John Rawls is often one of the first names mentioned. He re-established political philosophy as an important area in Anglo-phone philosophy separate to simply applied ethics, and attempted to give western democratic liberalism its most solid foundations. His works have been quoted in significant Supreme Court decisions in the United States, and in 1999 he was given a medal by President Clinton for reviving America’s faith in democracy – not many philosophers can claim that one! I ramble like this because Rawls is often painted as a philosophical bad-guy: the clean face of political liberalism which distracts you from the exclusionary, exploitative and elitist tendencies of western democracy that movements like Marxism and Feminism so convincingly exposed. Over the last year I have been reading Rawls, and have been surprised to find an extremely rigorous and historically aware thinker, just as interested in ridding liberalism of its flaws as providing a defence of it.

Of great importance to Rawls is the way which people communicate with one another publicly. Since people of all different religions, philosophical beliefs, ethnic backgrounds and worldviews will be members of a society, Rawls insisted that they need to settle on some sort of neutral way to communicate. Debate about and justification of institutions which affect all citizens – such as law and government systems – cannot be done through reference to disputable religious, philosophical or moral premises since those who are affected by these won’t necessarily share these views. Rawls did not think that you could keep all disputable claims out of public discourse, but wanted to rope off a section – the political – where reasonable people addressed each other merely as citizens, putting to one side other parts of their respective belief systems. It is Rawls’s ultimate hope that through this an authentic, stable and enduring community will emerge.

The above quote is an example of this idea in Rawls. It brings to mind a thought about Christianity in the public sphere, specifically about apologetics, and the way in which Christian’s debate, disagree, and attempt to persuade others who don’t share their faith. Rawls held that on matters of political importance, citizens should aspire to speak to one another in a neutral ‘political’ language, which was able to be intellectually followed and understood by others. In one sense, this was motivated by pragmatic concerns. Pragmatic, as this neutral language would be better suited to elicit agreement from others rather than a language loaded with an ideology and worldview.

My question is: should Christians, for merely pragmatic reasons, aim to debate, disagree and communicate with others in the public arena in a publicly accessible language – employing premises and concepts which are comprehensible by those outside of the faith. In my experience, Christians are not quite sure about this. They are caught on the horns of the dilemma of holding that the beliefs of the Christian faith are true, and at the same time recognising that often when you begin a conversation with people by stating ‘God did…’, ‘In the bible it says…’, ‘The resurrection of Jesus means that…’ you will not get very far.

Lately, I have seen two different approaches by Christians, both in opinion pieces written for the Sydney Morning Herald in the last year. The first was a defence of the Christian position on abortion, and a prescription that Australian society amends its laws so to be in greater harmony with this. Controversial premises where drawn upon, religious concepts were deployed, and Christian morality was prescribed in Christian vocabulary. The second was an explanation of the Christian view of marriage. The author deployed no explicitly Christian vocabulary, instead discussing his thoughts about the universal human need for love and security, and the common desire to build something together with another person, and how this expressed itself in his relationship with his wife. This second author had the aim of convincing people about the value of marriage, a belief he held as a Christian, but then communicated this is a neutral way. Both were written by Christian ministers from Sydney.

Do you think that either of these approaches is better? Do you agree with this point I’ve skimmed and appropriated from Rawls: that Christians should seek to communicate their faith and beliefs to others in a way which proceeds from commonly held premises and intelligible concepts? Or do you think the project of trying to escape your worldview, and write neutrally is futile, or perhaps even deceptive?

Dogmatism and Grace

So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning”  — Aaron Copland

From time to time this blog will degenerate in discussing music. Part of this is just that fact that I love music and want to talk about it. But part of it is that I believe that music has an unparalleled ability to affect the way people experience and think about the world. To walk unashamedly into a cliché – music is philosophy for the masses.

Put it this way, both Plato’s Symposium and Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ have the ability to shape people’s views about relationship and love; both Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and The Smiths’s ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’ can set a person’s orientation in thinking about hope, death and the afterlife. I suspect that both can do so as powerfully as one another, and in both cases it is much easier for the latter to do so. For Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason to affect your thinking on religious matters you have to read a difficult book from the 1790s, probably learn some background details about Kant, German Philosophy and Philosophy of Religion, and enter into a critical reading of the text, considering its premises and analysing its arguments. For The Smiths to achieve a similar result, you just have to listen to the (awesome) 3-minute track a few times. Music does not require the deliberate act of reading and scrutinizing a difficult text and its affect is often gradual and unnoticed.

All this is a preamble, and something of a justification, for saying that I think music can play a large part in shaping us and deserves to be thought about. Lately, this song has struck me…

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule

I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black

And I held my tongue as she told me, “Son,

Fear is the heart of love,” so I never went back.

– ‘I Will Follow You into the Dark’ by Death Cab for Cutie (2005)

A couple of Christian friends of mine don’t like this song – taking issue with the shallow, shapeless hope for eternity which runs through the song, and the fact that the band is practically synonymous with The O.C. But it grabs my attention. I think the song is about the deep consolation of friendship and commitment in the face of uncertainty and drastic change, told through promises made from one atheist to another to follow the other into the dark after death, since neither of them will be going to heaven or hell. It subtly blends a romantic rejection of imposed norms with a simple and powerful affirmation of the strength and peace which a loving companion can offer.

The writer, Benjamin Gibbard, recounts a memory from his teenage years when he was repelled by Christianity. A nun dressed in black gave him a good whack on the knuckles for believing the wrong thing, and told him to believe something which sounded utterly unintelligible to him and ran against his deep desire for a loving relationship. This is a tragic scene to me and reminds me of the importance of attempting to communicate about Christianity in a language which makes sense to other people, which speaks to their humanity, and in a way that is soaked in the kind of grace, acceptance, love and invitation to security which Gibbard ended up celebrating as an alternative to Christianity. What if a Christian had told Gibbard about the kind of love they know, the energy they are filled with, and the peace they are assured of in a language which he found intelligible, and in a way which spoke to his deepest human longings which made it hard to disbelieve?

This almost sounds as though I am saying, ‘What if some Christian had been crafty and tricked the young Gibbard into being a Christian!’ I’m not – the scene just makes me sad, and I wonder how many people who now find Christianity strange, cold and a little offensive had a similar moment. I suspect many first gave up on Christianity after an experience which they felt crushed their humanity, hurt them, and asked them to check their brain at the door.