Typically, we decide what to talk about on the podcast by saying “we should do some Spinoza,” and then ask “what’s his most famous work?” or “which work did we already have to read in some class?” which is typically the same work.
When dealing with newer, non-canonical writers, though, and sometimes even with other episodes, one of us will write up some kind of episode pitch to formulate what we should talk about. In this case, I’m just going to make the formal pitch publicly here, and maybe gauge how interested you listeners would be in this subject.
The Pitch: Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God, introduction and chapters 2 and 4.
While the Bible is of course plays an enormously important part in the history of Western philosophy, it would be problematic for us to, e.g. read the Sermon on the Mount and discuss the ethics presented. There’s way too much Biblical commentary out there already, and any ethical content in there is likely more systematically presented in a more straightforwardly philosophical work.
A key inroad here, though, is talking about the history of Biblical production. While lots of regular folks read the Bible, few read about why and by whom the sources that went into it were written, which is pretty essential for knowing how to take the thing.
Personally, I find the thing as a whole too rambling, incoherent, and ruined by its association with centuries of dogmatic religious thinkers to want to spend much time on it, but Armstrong, a prolific and well respected religious historian (former Catholic nun and former hardline atheist), challenges me on that in this book. She responds to the “new atheists” of today by saying that they too readily write off religion by oversimplifying it as concerned only dogmatic assertions of untenable, unscientific claims like those associated with the creationists.
Throughout the mass of history, she says, the emphasis was more on practice, i.e. ethical living, ritual, mystical experience, etc., and that it’s only really been in the last 150 years or so that our hyper-rational culture has turned religion into purely a matter of “what you believe.” We as a culture have “lost the knack” of religion.
In these chapters, she supports her argument that Biblical literalism is (or should be) a straw man by giving an account of the writing of the Old and New Testaments. For example, the writers and the original audience of the stories about creation, the garden of Eden, the flood, and the parting of the Red Sea understood these to be allegories, not in any way intended to be historically accurate, which were part of oral tradition, constantly changed by different storytellers over the years to reflect their audience. Their point was to make sense of the then-current (i.e. at the time the books were written, not at the time depicted) historical situation of the Jews, to convey in an artistic way their place in the universe (or the human condition in general), to affirm and interpret life. The collection of works making up the Old Testament were considered “gospel” until long after they were written, and the editors who put them together made no attempt to smooth out the contradictions, because the point wasn’t to make a full and coherent guidebook of history and morality, but to preserve their traditions and identity as Jews.
Re. the New Testament, one of her points is that the word translated as belief, i.e. where Jesus constantly demands that his disciples have belief in him, was in the original Greek “Pistis,” which meant at the time something like loyalty or devotion. In other words, Jesus wasn’t demanding that people believe in his divinity, but that they be dedicated to what he was trying to teach, i.e. give away their possessions and their pride to join in his group of followers, so this whole emphasis on “faith” as intellectual, dubious claim is a later historical development that twists the original intent of the documents. She gives similar treatment to Jesus’s miracles and the virgin birth, relating these to how other revered figures were described at the time, e.g. that the miracles were not meant to be Jesus proving himself to be divine. Even the claim that Jesus was the “son of God” is put into historical perspective: any devoted follower of Judaism in that tradition was considered by his devotion to be a son of God, and in fact the teaching was that all people were children of God; some sects traced Jesus’s upbringing through his father Joseph and would have been scandalized by a description of Mary as literally impregnated by God in the manner of Zeus impregnating a mortal the way he was depicted as doing in Greek myth.
She also discusses Talmudic Judaism from the time of early Christianity, saying that even its emphasis on the text as opposed to the oral tradition did not treat revelation as something that happened in the historical past, but as an ongoing process that occurs as commentators reinterpret the text for modern times.
So, what I object to about modern religion is, she says, is unrepresentative of religion as a whole, taken historically, and we have to look at the value for people of practices rather than just intellectually evaluate religious doctrines.
…Beyond discussion of her particular historical take on the Bible, I’m interested in what we think about whether this kind of account can be convincing, is particularly relevant to philosophy, and/or has any impact on our attitude towards religion. The charge to me seems comparable to the one made in James “The Will to Believe;” taken at a high level, it doesn’t matter so much whether we buy many of her specific Biblical interpretation maneuvers as whether this non-literal way of taking the Bible makes it seem any more profitable as a philosophical resource, and moreover whether religion as practice is as beneficial as she argues it to be. Even if she’s right, does this diffuse the atheist conflict in the way that she wants it to?
I think this would make an extremely interesting podcast… but really difficult to do without spending a lot of time on theology. Could you narrow down the focus to an historical book of the bible? Or the historical mysteries of the Gospels… and still have 2 hours of material? If you address Old Testament material, please reference the work of a Jewish author rather than an ex-Catholic nun! 🙂
Either way, I’d love to hear your discussions on the history of Biblical history / philosophy in some respect.
Keep up the great work!!
What I like about this text is that while it covers a lot of specific historical events, it’s all at a very high level, meaning we don’t have to get bogged down in theology. She’s actually written books on the history of Buddhism and Islam, and Chapter 1 of this book (which is a good skim but not particularly central) is on shamanistic rituals, so her point of view as a historian is more relevant than her having been a nun… the nun thing is just to offset the atheist thing as far as I’m concerned. Still, that’s always the problem with these “non-canonical” readings; what gives her the right to talk about this stuff as opposed to many others we might read? I don’t want to have us concentrate on something just because I’m pretty ignorant overall of the field and I happened to stumble on this, but if we want to get into the discussion, here’s one way I found to do it.
I see – that makes sense. I should have said “a Jewish author ‘as well as'” Armstrong’s work. I study religious history and am always kind of wary about non-Jewish theory of the Old Testament. In other words, could there also be an example of an ex-rabbi theorizing the Pentateuch as an allegory? Or hell, maybe even a contemporary rabbi?? What do I know!
Regardless, would love to hear the discussion that your research produces on this topic.
well, this could be interesting! But however you approach the Big One, here is what always gets me off the train. I have found the existance of God question to be less an epistemological issue as a semantic issue: no one every spells out what they mean by “God” and this problem goes for atheists as much as the faithful. Occasionally someone blurts something out like “omnipotent” or “omniscient” but they do not then take the time to explain what this really means either (and the terms beg more than they explain). So this is the stuff that *any* intellectual case for God needs to do, even if pragmatically motivated per James’s Will to Believe.
I have been of a mind on the matter at different times that could be variously characterized as pantheist, monotheist, polytheist, atheist, agnostic, and plain old confused. But in all my explorations and readings i so very, very seldom find God’s character and qualities laid out. Bucking the trend, the Old Testament does try to do this, though I don’t know if the Big One would be overwhelmed by His/Her caricature there…
I have a read a couple of Armstrong’s books and I have always found her to be interesting and thought provoking.
If I remember correctly her book ‘The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam’ (2000) also looks at the advent of scriptural literalism in terms of a response to the modern scientific world view. See a decent synopsis on wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_for_God
As to Marks closing points as to the proposed areas of discussion:
1) whether this non-literal way of taking the Bible makes it seem any more profitable as a philosophical resource.
I certainly think it gives you a more appropriate way to approach religious texts. But, while such a reading could be very profitable, I don’t see that his much to offer to what we generally consider ‘proper philosophy’, like, innit.
2) whether religion as practice is as beneficial as she argues it to be.
Ask yourself – Is this a question you really need to get into. It would make a great road accident style of podcast.
3) Does this diffuse the atheist conflict in the way that she wants it to?
I don’t see how. She could have the most watertight of arguments ever known but in the eyes of the new atheists she is considered to be defending the indefensible, and thus her arguments deemed inherently irrational.
Anyway, I think the ‘new atheists’ get more than enough bandwidth in podworld as it is. They are the worlds most broken of records. The best thing about them is the seem to be happy to play amongst each other and leave the rest of us alone. So I would not be too upset if you left this whole thing alone. But they’re just my thoughts.
Hi, Geoff,
Your comments are well taken. I’m a little ambivalent about covering Armstrong as a philosophy text, and we may well end up just referring to her work in the context of other or more traditional readings.
This link I looked at from the Battle for God wiki page had some good info from that book: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/26/books/holy-wars.html
Like I said, I think that the new atheist movement is primarily political, not philosophical, and this book gives a reason for it. Coupled with that is Sam Harris’s emphasis (in The End of Faith) on hassling religious moderates to stop tolerating the extremists. Yes, extremism (and the rage, violence, and poor political decision making that goes with it) is the big problem, but Harris’s point is that that extremism is only dangerous because the mass of mildly religious Christians (or Muslims, depending on the country) say “well, they’re going a little too far and not thinking so clearly, but their heart is in the right place.” Harris wants to make those folks, many of whom are actually just not that thoughtful about their religion, to really get clear about what’s dangerous about sloppy thinking that ignores science and our common experientially verifiable needs, so that the culture as a whole becomes less tolerant of those wacky extremists. …Much like today, the KKK is not (I think… I suppose this might vary by geography) a real political force, because casual racism has become widely shunned in this country, and certainly chased off of the media. So attacking fundamentalism directly isn’t going to work, because the fundamentalists are f’ing crazy and aren’t going to be convinced by anything, but trying to remake the culture that encourages fundamentalism at least has a shot at controlling the craziness.
“Like I said, I think that the new atheist movement is primarily political, not philosophical, and this book gives a reason for it”
No argument here. I just don’t see how the constant stream of abuse against religion of any kind is meant to lead to religious moderates becoming less tolerant of fundies.
Stuff like this is what really gets my goat, and I am an athaegnosticist.
http://www.atheistrev.com/2010/02/fundamentalists-vs-liberal-christians.html
I have never read this blog before. All I did was type “I have more respect for fundamentalists” into google. Why did I type this? Because its a comment I keep reading – I wonder if these people think there saying something original rather than just unconciously parroting someone else.
My problem with a lot of new atheism is that it is learned by rote, not the result of actual thinking. It is fueled by rhetoric. These people ‘respect’ the literalists because they fit neatly into their ready made arguments. Most believers don’t worship the Straw Man because that would be idolatrous.
rant over. I hate the new atheists so much.
I just read the Hedges piece Mark linked to from the NY times – http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/26/books/holy-wars.html – I am guessing that it is the same Chris Hedges interviewed in this podcast
from Point of Enquiry. I remember this being the only POI that I actually enjoyed. Rather than the what seemed to be the usual fanboy love in, this one actually got quite entertaining.
http://www.pointofinquiry.org/chris_hedges_i_dont_believe_in_atheists/
I’ve been withholding the urge to comment on this, but I might as well speak up and risk looking the fool.
Karen Armstrong is an engaging writer, but she’s a polemicist, and her thesis suffers accordingly. I’d rather not “study” her arguments, when I think there are deeper thinkers who have made similar points.
The issue of “literalism vs. liberalism” (or more broadly, cataphatic vs. apophatic traditions) within Christianity is nothing new. Dogmatic persecutions of Christian heretics started with the anti-Arianist persecutions in the 300s, all the way up to the anti-Cathar persecutions, the Inquisition, the counter-Reformation religious wars, etc. Whether such fanatical dogmatism was based upon “textual literalism,” or some other form of dogma, seems to me beside the point. Dogma and fanatical persecution is nothing new. If anything, it’s on the wane, compared to earlier eras.
Contra Armstrong, “metaphorical” interpretations of scripture are in a more fecund period than ever before. Just choosing from the 20th Century, you can find serious and influential “non-literalist” theologians. See, e.g., Paul Tillich, Paul Ricoeur, Rudolph Bultmann, or Jean-Luc Marion. Or, from the Jewish tradition, you have Martin Buber. Or, to look to philosophers who were not theologians, but who were deeply religious from a “metaphorical” perspective, look at Henri Bergson, or Emmanuel Levinas, or Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Certainly, Ms. Armstrong is correct to point out religious belief need not be an intellectual suicide pact. But, then as now, there has always been a tension between “theological” and “folk” Christianity. Ms. Armstrong is right that “folk” traditions need not define Christianity. But she’s wrong to suggest earlier Christianity had it “correct” and the current Christianity has it “incorrect.” (More to the point, she’s wrong to suggest there’s any such thing as a single “current” Christian tradition that’s distinct from a single “past” Christian tradition.
I think there are better ways to explore “folk Christianity vs. theology” without referring to Ms. Armstrong or her dubious thesis. My vote would be, say, a discussion of Friedrich Schleiermacher:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schleiermacher/#10
I suggest Schleiermacher because his seemed to be the first modern attempt to harmonize Enlightenment skepticism with Christianity, and to adopt a more metaphorical understanding of scripture. But there are other places to start the discussion as well.
Also, I would rather see you guys spend your considerable talents on something challenging (like Schleiermacher), than “pop” historians (like Armstrong). To me, the real value of PEL is that you take difficult philosophical texts and help explain them to a lay audience. I don’t need help understanding Armstrong’s thesis, but getting a good grip on Schleiermacher is tough.
Selfish, I know, but you asked, so I figured I should give my vote. I think “philosophy of religion” is a welcome topic, but Armstrong is not the best place to start.
Hi, Daniel,
Thanks for your comment. Yes, in listening to more of this book, I’m getting a lot out of it, and actually brought up several historical points from it in our Spinoza discussion last night, but it’s intellectual history, not philosophy, and its major value to me has been to alert me to the distinctions between a number of the medieval philosophers and others that I’d not considered reading. So, we won’t be doing an episode focusing on this book, though I’m sure it will come up again. We had fun talking about Spinoza on God, and I think I’d rather just do some other religion-oriented episodes (Kierkegaard, St. Augustine, maybe Hume’s Dialogues on Natural Religion… we’ll be doing Zen soon) than having a broader topic-oriented one like I described here. One of the other guys may have another suggestion, though, so this determination could change. I’ll definitely take note of your reading suggestions and check them out sooner or later. Thanks. -ML
Hi Mark,
1. Looking forward to the Spinoza episode!
2. Wow, I would flip if you guys you would do a Kierkegaard session before the year’s out – where do I send the Paypal donation to influence the vote? 🙂 If I may ask, please don’t do “Fear and Trembling” – so many other philosophy podcasts have covered that book. And, IMHO, “The Sickness Unto Death” contains more radically original insights anyway. It was TSUD alone that seems to be the origin for early Heideggerian and Sartrean concepts, if not vocabulary (e.g., the self as relation, facticity, fallenness, authenticity, bad faith, sorge, conscience, dread, das Man, etc.) Debating point: Did early Heidegger and Sartre gain fame simply by secularizing and re-naming concepts described earlier in TSUD?
3. Zen would be a great topic – I hope you guys include a reading from D.T. Suzuki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisetz_Teitaro_Suzuki
I read a lot of Suzuki when I lived in Japan, and I still find him the most readable of the Japanese Zen scholars. He so popularized Zen in the West, I wonder if most Westerners now equate all Buddhism with Zen Buddhism. (Which is kind of funny, as Zen is such a minor Buddhist school in Japan and Asia!)
Cheers,
D.
Mark
Put me in the yes column in doing the Armstrong book…
Mike