God is Not Great: A Rebuttal
The following letter to The New York Times Book Review was written by Perry Dane, professor of law at Rutgers University School of Law-Camden.
"Michael Kinsley, in his review of Christopher Hitchen's God is Not Great, comments admiringly that "the book is full of logical flourishes and conundrums, many of them entertaining to the nonbeliever." The examples that Kinsley cites, however, are all silly, shallow, or just plain obtuse.
"For example, I am not a Christian, but I certainly see no fatal logical contradiction in the Christian conviction that Christ "died for our sins" and also "did not die at all." To the contrary, the notion that the eternal, immaterial, unchanging God would incarnate as a creature capable of passing through death in the first place -- even or especially a death followed by a resurrection -- suggests such an infinite, category-defying act of loving self-emptying that it is easy to appreciate why a believing Christian would find that idea a great source of power and hope.
"Even more telling is Kinsley's smart-alecky paraphase of Hitchens, "Did the Jews not know that murder and adultery were wrong before they received the Ten Commandments, and if they did know, why was this such a wonderful gift?"
"As both Kinsley and Hitchens should know, neither the Bible nor any serious person has ever suggested that the Ten Commandments first introduced the idea that murder or adultery is wrong. Rather, the reveloutionary message of the Ten Commandments is that this moral order is tied both to the order of the cosmos and to a direct relationship of covenantal love and responsibility between God and a community of human bengs.
"Kinglsey rightly wonders whether Hitchens's supposed logical "sallies" would "give pause to the believer." He fails to appreciate, however, that the real lesson here is that religious beleivers and nonbelievers do not merely posit different answers to the same questions; rather, they often ask diferent questions, and draw on different paradigms and concerns. To imagine that the debate between them could be resolved by "logical" one-upmanship, or that relgious folk are merely to dense to see what others find obvious, is not only offensive, but naive and, dare I say it, illogical."
A Response
Dane's letter is a pretty good example of special pleading. The fact that he denies being a Christian shows only that some non-Christians happen to be quite sympathetic to Christianity.
I certainly see no fatal logical contradiction in the Christian conviction that Christ "died for our sins" and also "did not die at all."
Notwithstanding what Dane can or cannot see, the two assertions "Christ died" and "Christ did not die" cannot both be true. If the statements "He died" and "He did not die" were made about any other person in history, then Dane would surely agree that they were contradictory. But because the statements are made by Christians about the founder of their religion, he thinks the rules are different. That is special pleading.
the notion that the eternal, immaterial, unchanging God would incarnate as a creature capable of passing through death in the first place -- even or especially a death followed by a resurrection -- suggests such an infinite, category-defying act of loving self-emptying that it is easy to appreciate why a believing Christian would find that idea a great source of power and hope.
That does not begin to explain how the statements could be consistent. It only explains, sort of, why Christians believe the contradiction: Believing it makes them feel powerful and hopeful. I'm sure it does exactly that, but a statement does not become true just because it is a source of power and hope.
neither the Bible nor any serious person has ever suggested that the Ten Commandments first introduced the idea that murder or adultery is wrong.
That is not quite the point. The point is that many apologists for religion do suggest, in all seriousness, that we humans could have no way of knowing that murder and adultery are wrong if God had not, in some way, given us that knowledge.
the revolutionary message of the Ten Commandments is that this moral order is tied both to the order of the cosmos and to a direct relationship of covenantal love and responsibility between God and a community of human beings.
The Bible nowhere says any of that. Given certain assumptions, it could be a reasonable interpretation of the Bible, but those assumptions are neither necessarily true nor obviously true. If Duke is suggesting that skeptics are wrong to reject assumptions of that nature, then that is special pleading.
the real lesson here is that religious beleivers and nonbelievers do not merely posit different answers to the same questions; rather, they often ask different questions, and draw on different paradigms and concerns.
There can be no good short response to such a broadly phrased assertion, but I will offer some general comments.
Dane might be under the postmodernist impression that all paradigms are equally true. I don't think most Christians accept that notion, and I certainly don't.
The "lesson" that skeptics and believers "often ask different questions" is irrelevant on those occasions when we are asking the same question and getting different answers. If the question is "Is the Bible the word of God?" it doesn't make a bit of direct difference if there are lots of questions that Christians ask and I don't ask, and lots of other questions that I ask and Christians don't ask.
The real problem, if it has anything to do with different questions being asked, is that one side or the other might not be honest about what they're really asking. For most skeptics and believers alike, "Is the Bible the word of God?" is not a real question, because each of them already convinced of the answer. The believer's real question might be "How can I remain convinced that the Bible is the word of God?" while the skeptic's real question might be "How can I remain convinced that the Bible is not the word of God?"
If that is the case, then they are both wrong. But not all skeptics or believers approach the question with their minds so firmly made up. Some of them sincerely want to know which way the evidence points when that evidence is examined without any assumptions about which way it is supposed to point. And when the question about the Bible's origin is asked with that attitude, then it becomes relevant to note that of all the hundreds of millions of books that have ever been written, practically all Christians (Mormons are the most famous exception) claim a divine origin for one, and only one. Skeptics should hardly need any special pleading to defend their belief that the Bible is just like all other books. Special pleading is only useful in defense of claims of
"Michael Kinsley, in his review of Christopher Hitchen's God is Not Great, comments admiringly that "the book is full of logical flourishes and conundrums, many of them entertaining to the nonbeliever." The examples that Kinsley cites, however, are all silly, shallow, or just plain obtuse.
"For example, I am not a Christian, but I certainly see no fatal logical contradiction in the Christian conviction that Christ "died for our sins" and also "did not die at all." To the contrary, the notion that the eternal, immaterial, unchanging God would incarnate as a creature capable of passing through death in the first place -- even or especially a death followed by a resurrection -- suggests such an infinite, category-defying act of loving self-emptying that it is easy to appreciate why a believing Christian would find that idea a great source of power and hope.
"Even more telling is Kinsley's smart-alecky paraphase of Hitchens, "Did the Jews not know that murder and adultery were wrong before they received the Ten Commandments, and if they did know, why was this such a wonderful gift?"
"As both Kinsley and Hitchens should know, neither the Bible nor any serious person has ever suggested that the Ten Commandments first introduced the idea that murder or adultery is wrong. Rather, the reveloutionary message of the Ten Commandments is that this moral order is tied both to the order of the cosmos and to a direct relationship of covenantal love and responsibility between God and a community of human bengs.
"Kinglsey rightly wonders whether Hitchens's supposed logical "sallies" would "give pause to the believer." He fails to appreciate, however, that the real lesson here is that religious beleivers and nonbelievers do not merely posit different answers to the same questions; rather, they often ask diferent questions, and draw on different paradigms and concerns. To imagine that the debate between them could be resolved by "logical" one-upmanship, or that relgious folk are merely to dense to see what others find obvious, is not only offensive, but naive and, dare I say it, illogical."
A Response
Dane's letter is a pretty good example of special pleading. The fact that he denies being a Christian shows only that some non-Christians happen to be quite sympathetic to Christianity.
I certainly see no fatal logical contradiction in the Christian conviction that Christ "died for our sins" and also "did not die at all."
Notwithstanding what Dane can or cannot see, the two assertions "Christ died" and "Christ did not die" cannot both be true. If the statements "He died" and "He did not die" were made about any other person in history, then Dane would surely agree that they were contradictory. But because the statements are made by Christians about the founder of their religion, he thinks the rules are different. That is special pleading.
the notion that the eternal, immaterial, unchanging God would incarnate as a creature capable of passing through death in the first place -- even or especially a death followed by a resurrection -- suggests such an infinite, category-defying act of loving self-emptying that it is easy to appreciate why a believing Christian would find that idea a great source of power and hope.
That does not begin to explain how the statements could be consistent. It only explains, sort of, why Christians believe the contradiction: Believing it makes them feel powerful and hopeful. I'm sure it does exactly that, but a statement does not become true just because it is a source of power and hope.
neither the Bible nor any serious person has ever suggested that the Ten Commandments first introduced the idea that murder or adultery is wrong.
That is not quite the point. The point is that many apologists for religion do suggest, in all seriousness, that we humans could have no way of knowing that murder and adultery are wrong if God had not, in some way, given us that knowledge.
the revolutionary message of the Ten Commandments is that this moral order is tied both to the order of the cosmos and to a direct relationship of covenantal love and responsibility between God and a community of human beings.
The Bible nowhere says any of that. Given certain assumptions, it could be a reasonable interpretation of the Bible, but those assumptions are neither necessarily true nor obviously true. If Duke is suggesting that skeptics are wrong to reject assumptions of that nature, then that is special pleading.
the real lesson here is that religious beleivers and nonbelievers do not merely posit different answers to the same questions; rather, they often ask different questions, and draw on different paradigms and concerns.
There can be no good short response to such a broadly phrased assertion, but I will offer some general comments.
Dane might be under the postmodernist impression that all paradigms are equally true. I don't think most Christians accept that notion, and I certainly don't.
The "lesson" that skeptics and believers "often ask different questions" is irrelevant on those occasions when we are asking the same question and getting different answers. If the question is "Is the Bible the word of God?" it doesn't make a bit of direct difference if there are lots of questions that Christians ask and I don't ask, and lots of other questions that I ask and Christians don't ask.
The real problem, if it has anything to do with different questions being asked, is that one side or the other might not be honest about what they're really asking. For most skeptics and believers alike, "Is the Bible the word of God?" is not a real question, because each of them already convinced of the answer. The believer's real question might be "How can I remain convinced that the Bible is the word of God?" while the skeptic's real question might be "How can I remain convinced that the Bible is not the word of God?"
If that is the case, then they are both wrong. But not all skeptics or believers approach the question with their minds so firmly made up. Some of them sincerely want to know which way the evidence points when that evidence is examined without any assumptions about which way it is supposed to point. And when the question about the Bible's origin is asked with that attitude, then it becomes relevant to note that of all the hundreds of millions of books that have ever been written, practically all Christians (Mormons are the most famous exception) claim a divine origin for one, and only one. Skeptics should hardly need any special pleading to defend their belief that the Bible is just like all other books. Special pleading is only useful in defense of claims of
Labels: theology
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