Whether Spinoza should be technically considered a pantheist or atheist, pastor Mark Driscoll here does sum up how the resultant view is different than the idea of a personal God standing outside of and judging his creation:
In reviewing some Buddhist texts and listening to Buddhist podcasts for an upcoming podcast episode (ep 27), I've been thinking more about the relation between religion and philosophy. I find it instructive (though, as you might expect, infuriating) to watch guys like this responding to philosophical ideas.
He doesn't say "...and having a pantheistic view makes it necessary for ethics, if it exists at all, to be grounded in the world and not outside of it, which will never sufficiently satisfy our moral intuitions," which seems like an argument that could be meaningfully elaborated. Instead, he says that with no God outside of creation, there is no difference between right and wrong (he mentions "two sides of the same coin" but doesn't make any attempt to investigate what that might mean to, say, the Buddhist, who would acknowledge that these are ultimately one but that for practical purposes they must be recognized), no justice for rape and murder, no consolation, and you may as well commit suicide. This is not exactly an exemplary use of the principle of charity.
I have long thought that while individual religious thinkers have come up with interesting, sophisticated world-views worthy of consideration, as soon as these philosophies turn into social movements, all subtlety is lost, thinking disappears, and the thing turns to shit. This is certainly true of attempts to make a cult out of Nietzsche (Ayn Rand and Hitler being two notorious examples; ever see the Hitchock film "Rope?"), and look what Marx became turned into actual political doctrine. I would even classify the use of Kant as a bludgeon of religious tolerance here ("He's talking about religion, which is beyond science and human rationality, so he can say whatever bullshit he wants without us being able to object."), though Kant doesn't usually get the credit in this case.
But obviously the big one here is religion, which goes through so many permutations and mutilations in being organized and interpreted and disseminated that schisms and reformations are all but inevitable. Whereas the Buddhist philosopher we're looking into (Nagarjuna) seems to recognize some actual philosophical problems and respond to them, I see no such subtlety in flipping through the "Lotus Sutra" from near the same time and in the same tradition, and it's the latter that became a scriptural text to many Buddhists.
What I'm still figuring out in revisiting my little theory here is the middle men, the priests and teachers and practitioners who make a good faith effort to learn things and seem to spend a good deal of time thinking, and certainly talking. While I can easily understand why non-philosophical laypeople are going to have sloppy, unjustified beliefs (because everything they think they needed to know they learned in kindergarten), what of people who have given their lives to thinking and teaching? What excuses does Mark Driscoll here have for being such a poor philosopher?
...Or am I missing the distinction here between philosophizing and preaching, where the latter is allowed to appeal to the audience's emotions and call upon them only to reference doctrines already previously imparted so that they can reject new ideas such as pantheism as being repugnant to these preconceptions? I'll be charitable and say that Driscoll is not so much intellectually dishonest or purposefully dense as trying to stay on message for what he perceives to be the good of his flock. (Flock 'n roll, baby!)
All religious videos should, I think, be required to have a goofy talking snake in them to provide comic relief. I think this one is available, though he might abstain on moral grounds from taking the gig.
-Mark
Wes Alwan says
August 30, 2010 at 12:38 pmCancer and the cigarette butt are God. How absurd. (Because other forms of God talk are so easily comprehended).
But hey, he’s dressed to go out for drinks afterwards.
Burl says
August 30, 2010 at 1:26 pmI am not sure why, but I know pantheism has been considered as some really great evil by Catholic clergy.
The preacher in the vid got panentheism wrong, as it holds God as both transcendent (enveloping the universe) and immanent (lures it towards greater novelty and shares every experience with the creatures).
This was a not so prominent feature of Whitehead’s Organic Philosophy – it was more a nod to theism as a place to locate Platonic Ideas. But Hartshorne over-amplified this theistic element and subjugated Whitehead’s more natural cosmology into a major religious movement known as Process Theology. (On a timely note, process theology led to liberation theology, which has Glen Beck’s panties all in a wad of late).
This co=opting Whitehead’s work into a religious movement along with the prevailing disdain analistic philosophers held for metaphysics is what killed a cosmology that is still quite fertile ground for philosophical study today.
Geoff says
August 30, 2010 at 3:30 pmI thought this selected comment from a Fairfax blog I was reading yesterday might be added to the honor roll. Directed at atheists rather than pantheists. Do you actually need to put in a full stop after you have written Full Stop? Must get me a copy of the ranter’s style guide. Anyway, the quote –
“There is no morality with atheism Full Stop.
There is no philosophical fixed point Full Stop.
Morality must be relative because of a lack of a fixed point Full Stop.
Atheists who act like they have a Christian morality are comtemptible.
They have seen the horrors of the 20th Century and now claim they are good atheists or good communists. They are simply bludging of Christian morality. They are leaves in the wind, morality is self-serving, it moves to suit self-interest. They have a fake morality.
Such is the fate of a modern atheist. But why don’t you just own up to it? Because deep down you know it’s wrong and leads to a world ruled by power and brute force.”
From – http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/blogs/godless-gross/the-body-count-issue/20100827-13v8a.html
Mastema says
August 30, 2010 at 8:52 pmI personally know several people who attend Mark Driscoll’s church. I watch his videos from time to time for entertainment purposes (his video on Twilight is particularly funny). Based on my own observations and from what I’ve heard from my co-workers who go to Mars Hill, you’re take on him is spot on.
I don’t understand why, but the guy is extremely popular.
Burl says
August 31, 2010 at 3:45 am“…Or am I missing the distinction here between philosophizing and preaching, where the latter is allowed to appeal to the audience’s emotions and call upon them only to reference doctrines already previously imparted so that they can reject new ideas such as pantheism as being repugnant to these preconceptions?”
This seems to be a modern version of Socrates v Sophists.
Mark Linsenmayer says
August 31, 2010 at 10:34 amGeoff, when I glanced at your post at first I thought you were actually advocating the argument you’re quoting and started to pound my head against a nearby wall, but now I see you were just pulling in a curiosity from the larger Internet, which is a scary place indeed, what with all the bludging and body counting and Full Stopping. Get that fella the Euthyphro, stat! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma)
Simom says
September 3, 2010 at 11:35 amLike Einstein said,
“I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”
For him, the concept of a personal God was the product of human weakness.
” I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”