I’d like to follow up on the claim of Žižek and others that the God revealed in Jesus is not a God of tidy prose logic but a God who celebrates reality’s “loose ends.” Last time I suggested that this lesson of so-called “Christian atheism” should dispossess us of the proverb that “everything happens for a reason,” a proverb that turns out to be more evasive of suffering than it is truly consoling.

This time I’d like to suggest that the appeal to a God of “reasons” is at work not only in common Christian responses to grief, but also in contemporary Christian objections to environmental ethics. One of the guiding questions here, then, is whether a shift away from the idea of a God who secures life’s “logic” can open us up to a properly ethical embrace of non-human nature.

Recently the Cornwall Alliance, a conservative Christian group, produced a DVD series urging their fellow Christians to object mightily to any agenda remotely smacking of environmentalism. Earth care, they argue in the videos, is fundamentally opposed to the Gospel of Christ, and the promotion of such care is a most insidious threat to our children, whose supple minds are especially susceptible to the temptations of idols. Not surprisingly, the Cornwall Alliance titled its series “Resisting the Green Dragon.”

Similar sentiments to those expressed in this series surfaced in a more broadly palatable form during Rick Santorum‘s recent campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. One of the things that made Santorum so attractive to evangelical Christians was the character of his opposition to government-enforced environmental protections. All the candidates shared this opposition, of course, but what Santorum added to the requisite I’ll-cut-all-government-agencies pitch was a theological justification. Barack Obama’s environmental policies, Santorum said, are not only fiscally unsound and politically overreaching, they are based on a “phony theology.”

Immediately Santorum came under fire for intimating that Obama is not really a Christian, and thus appearing to support those unfounded but still-popular claims that he is a secret Muslim. This, Santorum assured us, was far from his intention, whether such a suggestion played well with his base or not (it did). What he really meant, as he told CBS News the next morning, was that Obama doesn’t seem to have a Biblical understanding of human beings’ unique status in the universe. He meant that Obama’s policies don’t appear to respect the Biblical idea that human beings have “dominion” over the rest of creation.

What dominion means, Santorum stated confidently, is that human beings ought never to be “subservient” to non-human nature. In other words, in the (commonplace) event of a conflict between human economic goals and the continued thriving of non-human ecosystems (read: Alberta tar sands), the Bible says human considerations always hold the trump card. On this understanding, to “care” for the environment apart from the weighing of potential human costs and benefits is to subscribe to a “phony theology.”

On the surface, the shared concern in these examples of Christian resistance to environmentalism is that of avoiding idolatry (worshipping the creature instead of the creator). Yet their common effect is the aggrandizement of the human, to the point where their appeals to “dominion” seem out of step with any lordship discernibly modeled on Christ, who was among us “as one who serves.” What is at the root of this need to be so emphatic about human dominion that one all but ignores concrete Biblical models of authority? Is it possible that we try to assert a monarchical dominion over non-human nature because we have discovered something true but also troubling about creation? Have we perhaps discovered that creation is less tidily explicable than the human need for reasons can handle? By extension, do we dominate the non-human other because it’s our Biblically-justified, “God-given right,” or because we don’t like the idea that meeting God in his good creation might require developing a love for wilderness of all kinds?

Consider what Annie Dillard writes, in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, about what the “second book” of revelation (nature) reveals about its maker:

The point of the dragonfly’s terrible lip, the giant water bug, birdsong, or the beautiful dazzle and flash of sunlighted minnows, is not that it all fits together like clockwork—for it doesn’t, particularly, not even inside the goldfish bowl—but that it all flows so freely wild, like the creek, that it surges in such a free, fringed tangle. Freedom is the world’s water and weather, the world’s nourishment freely given, its soil and sap: and the creator loves pizzazz. (139)

The question is, do we love pizzazz? Is the world’s wild freedom, its extravagant perpetuation of the new, is all this given to us that we might “master” it? Does living up to our dominion mean straightening nature’s tangles, turning an apparently personal, albeit wild, power into something humanly profitable?

Francis Bacon certainly thought so. He justified the violence of his new scientific method by appealing to his contemporaries’ interest in dominion, rooted in fear of nature’s extravagance and “femininity” (which for patriarchy amount to the same thing):

For like as a man’s disposition is never well known or proved till he be crossed, nor Proteus ever changed shapes till he was straitened and held fast, so nature exhibits herself more clearly under the trials and vexations of art than when left to herself. (Bacon, “De Dignitate,” Works vol. 4, 298.)

In other words, if you want to relate to non-human nature in the way God intended, you cannot respect its (chaotic) agency, but must transform it, even violently, into an instrument of the human will. Thus do boreal forests become “oil reserves.”

Is there a warranted Christian response to the discovery that non-human nature is characterized more by extravagance than by efficiency which is not so Baconian? In other words, does Christianity encourage us toward a more sympathetic relationship with nature’s wildness than the fear which leads to oppressive dominion?

In Ecology at the Heart of Faith, Catholic theologian Denis Edwards offers a helpful summary of how Christian conceptions of the Holy Spirit have always pushed in the direction of hospitality toward creation’s extravagance, instead of fear of the same. The Spirit of God is depicted in the Bible as the life-giving breath which animates all creatures. Thus Edwards suggests that in the ongoing process of creation, the Spirit is the agent of the radical newness (the baffling pizzazz) that we can see all around us in an emergent universe. God as Trinity so loves communion among differences that in the person of the Spirit he creates ever more surprising differences to mediate in what amounts to a wildly extravagant love.

It seems appropriate, then, that in the Bible the Spirit is not given a human face: “the Biblical images for the Spirit tend to come from the natural world. . . . These images preserve the otherness of the Spirit of God and resist the human tendency to domesticate the Spirit” (45). And yet, Edwards goes on, this refusal of domestication, this critique of anthropocentrism, does not make God as Spirit remote, for “it points to the otherness of nonhuman creatures as a place of God.” The breath of God in the world is a wild wind, and yet this ought not to lead us to fearful tactics of domination, but instead “to a new respect for what is wild and beyond human domestication” (46).

The imperative resulting from this view seems to be this: don’t imagine you can love or serve only where you see a human face, or that you forsake your properly human role when you transgress that boundary. For the Trinitarian God’s creative love does not wish to establish you as a static sovereign, safe within your border as “human” against the “non-human.” Instead, the Spirit’s love seeks to form you according to the model of “ecstatic” personhood that is the very life of God. To prefer self-possessed anthropocentrism is to reject the personhood/life at the core of reality. If we seek our true dominion, if we seek to model the only truly “authoritative” form of life in the universe, then we must seek to be initiated into this way of personhood; we must seek to be inspired to hospitality rather than fear by the excesses of creaturely difference. This would not mean inviting tigers into our homes, but it should mean resisting political decisions whose preservation of human “benefits” at the expense of non-human nature is really to our detriment as persons being formed by the wildly hospitable Spirit.

Justin D. Klassen is Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the
author of the recent book, The Paradox of Hope: Theology and the Problem of Nihilism (Cascade, 2011), and co-editor of a forthcoming volume on Charles Taylor’s account of modern secularity. He lives in Louisville with his wife, Melissa, their two daughters, Clara and Gracie, and their dog, Eloise.

As for Noah, Bill Leonard asks a bunch of questions – good ones.  Be wise.  Listen to his awesome visit to the podcast & go check out his post on Noah.

When did the people of Noah’s day finally realize that what was happening to them was more than just a stationary front? Why do some religious folks take the Noah story literally but resist the possibility of a contemporary global catastrophe, one essentially of human creation?

Is biblical literalism clearer for the past than the present? How many glaciers must collapse and heat waves smolder before we literally read the “signs of the times?”

Wouldn’t it be weird if “secularists” turned out to be the ones who discerned earth’s impending judgment on our lives and lifestyles? What if global warming is true and we don’t have sense enough to see the planet itself as ark?

Like Noah, we still could labor together to find “grace in the eyes of the Lord.” Or just turn up the church air conditioning.

If you wondered exactly what our modern day Noah has to say check out Paul Gilding’s recent TED talk ‘the earth is full.’

 The Predicament of Belief  by Philip Clayton and Steven Knapp is a first-rate book – both highly thought-provoking and courageous. Philip Clayton has consistently shown himself to be one of the Church’s most creative thinkers and is perhaps unequalled in offering imaginative tools for re-invigorating our approach to Christian faith ‘after Google’. For catalyzing and hosting constructive debate with a combination of intellectual vigour and graciousness there simply seems to be no-one better on the horizon of the contemporary theological landscape. So I’m a fan.

The first philosophical chapters of The Predicament of Belief, making a powerful case for the rationality of believing in a personal, benevolent Ultimate Reality, are ones with which I find myself agreeing without reservation. I start getting nervous when the authors’ ‘Christian minimalist’ position is taken as more than a pragmatic expression of what can be adduced without stepping beyond rational justifiability. When minimalism becomes a preferred option in the search not merely for human consensus but for truth about Ultimate Reality, my theological nerve-endings start jangling.

Adoptionism – the only solution ?

Here I would particularly like to focus on Christology. I’m torn between admiration for the authors’ brave attempt at a minimal ‘core Christian proposal’ that can function as a rallying-point for the contemporary Church and ambivalence towards their constructive suggestion. Is it a) the only viable truth-claim available in the present climate or b) a simple working hypothesis whose interest lies in its usefulness for stemming the decline in American mainline Protestantism, an attractive proposition to those alienated by traditional dogma? While I agree that sensitivity to those suspicious of doctrine in general is highly desirable, I find The Predicament overly pessimistic about rationally justifying anything approaching an orthodox theological viewpoint: their assumption that such a position cannot stand in the 21st century seems a little hasty. Especially as my experience is that the ‘spiritual but not religious’ constituency which minimalism hopes to attract is just as resistant to the ‘left-brain’ logical argumentation represented by The Predicament as to an insistence on literal adherence to ancient creeds.

In the book, adoptionism is presented as an option ‘that does not include the claim that the same person who became the man Jesus already existed in divine form before Jesus was born’.  Instead, ‘after Jesus’s death, God somehow took this individual’s subjectivity into the divine subjectivity, commingling them in such a way that they came to dwell within each other and even to become identical to each other.’ This supposedly offers a way out of the ‘dichotomy that either Jesus continues as the identical person within the godhead or Jesus is a merely human model for others to emulate.’ This ‘may be attractive to those contemporary Christians who can’t quite believe (even if they have no way of definitively denying) the complicated assertions of classical Trinitarian thought, but who nevertheless find themselves believing in Jesus’ continuing personal presence’.

Towards the end of his concise Emergent Village presentation of the book  (around the 30 minute mark on the HBC podcast), PC puts his theological hands up and admits that his preference goes to ‘adoptionist’ Christology because the alternative of an eternal preexistent Logos is not persuasive now that static Greek metaphysics have landed in the trash can of history. Not unless you believe in a ‘three bears with three chairs’ Trinity (don’t worry, you’ll understand if you listen to the audio…).

The pre-existent Logos: an obsolete accessory ?

For PC, the preexistent Logos simply has to go. But what takes its place? I find myself having mixed sentiments towards his constructive proposal. I can certainly understand his argument and agree as far as the utility of a Spirit Christology is concerned. I also very much find myself drawn to his view (shared by many of the participants in the Claremont discussion) that the resource of process thought makes a better bridge between theology and contemporary science than Greek metaphysical discourse. And I don’t want to exaggerate the extent to which Philip Clayton has taken a position that can’t be accommodated within an orthodox Christian framework given some judicious alterations in vocabulary.

It should be admitted

1.  that his welcome affirmation of the post-Resurrection unity of Jesus and God has bigger practical implications for the Church today than the issue of the pre-incarnate Logos and that
2.  it is historically undeniable that adoptionism was certainly a valid option within the very earliest Christian period. For those on the fringes of Christian belief who looking for an entry-point to Christian theology, an adoptionist Christology can perhaps be of value.

However, it must be said that Philip Clayton’s solution of his conundrum is not without cost, and that the price (exegetical, theological and ecumenical) is maybe higher than either The Predicament of Belief or the Emergent Village Theological Conversation seem to suggest.

Conclusion – Part 1: 

Firstly, an adoptionist position arguably leads to problems with Scripture which are difficult to solve even with a black belt in exegetical judo.

Secondly, the theological price. Get rid of the preexistent Logos and you also kiss farewell to the Immanent Trinity, Trinitarian theology of creation and Trinitarian theological anthropology. Hasta la vista to the Cappadocian Fathers – and Eastern Christian tradition more generally (as well as Celtic Christianity in the West), for which the threeness of God is as just as much theological bedrock as the Divine Unity. Philosophically, if God is not eternally Triune, then grounding otherness ontologically becomes impossible unless you go the route of ontologizing the God-world relationship (which creates other problems). If the Son is not eternal, then logically neither is the Father.

 Thirdly, the view that belief in the eternal Logos is just Greek metaphysical mumbo-jumbo has been challenged by recent research on Philo (identified in The Predicament as the conduit for Logos theology), not only by Christian scholars such as Larry Hurtado and Margaret Barker but also within Jewish studies on the part of Alan F Segal and more recently Daniel Boyarin. If their thesis of the pre-Christian incorporation of the Logos and other mediating concepts within a Jewish framework of salvation history is correct, then the notion that the Logos is a static concept derived purely from Hellenistic sources becomes questionable. If Judaism at the time of early Christianity proved capable of translating the Logos into its own conceptualities, thereby seriously tweaking the Greek concept, this raises the possibility that a creative theological appropriation of the Logos idea may equally be a way forward for us today. It’s not automatically a theological albatross.

 Fourthly, an overtly ‘adoptionist’ position risks alienating some theological constituencies (I’m thinking particularly of Social Trinitarians, admirers of Stanley Hauerwas, and ‘post-conservatives’ drawn to the work of figures such as Roger Olson or NT Wright) which might otherwise be attracted to this conversation and would certainly be welcome contributors to it. If PC wants a Big Tent approach, then prodding the roof with a sharp object may not be advisable. As even superstar theologians such as Hans Küng in the 1970s and more recently Elizabeth A Johnson have discovered to their cost, embracing an adoptionist Christology is not necessarily a way to win friends and influence people in certain circles: there are simply too many people out there willing to hit the ‘THIS IS HERESY!!!!’ button, and life is too short to have to deal with them.

in part 2: an alternative proposal. 

Doubly trained in music and systematic/philosophical theology, Peter Bannister is Associate Artistic Director and Composer-in-Association of SOLI DEO GLORIA Inc., a Chicago-based organization devoted to furthering sacred music in the Judeo-Christian tradition. He also co-directs the American Church in Paris’s participation in the John Templeton Foundation’s ‘Scientists in Congregations Ministry Initiative’, and is the author of the Music and Theology blog ‘Da stand das Meer’.

This is a difficult era for those who find themselves committed to the values of scientific rationality and yet moved by the claims of a religious tradition.

That is how the preface to Philip Clayton’s new book The Predicament of Belief  begins.

I am always a little jealous of people who have a scientific background or who have a comprehension of philosophy. Don’t get me wrong, I read books like Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Green and dabble in Tillich or Moltmann. I love reading that stuff and get a lot out of it … but it is never comfortable or familiar. I was raised as a Billy Graham evangelical and have a Bachelor’s Degree in Biblical Studies. I have a Masters in Theology and in 20 years of ministry  I have preached over 1,000 sermons. I am a pastor. I adore the church. I think in community. It is both how I am built and how I have been groomed. This is part of why I wrote my thesis in Contextual Theology and am now pursuing a degree in Practical Theology.  I am obsessed with the church. 

“… It is hard to decide what parts of one’s tradition it makes sense to reject or retain.”

Here is the thing:

• I like when John Cobb calls into question the ousia of the Creeds and gets into the metaphysics of the hypostatic union.

But can I go with Philip’s brand of Adoptionism (in Christology)?

• I like when Philip talks about the origins of the universe including  the possibility of a multi-verse with Red Giant suns exploding and propelling their heaviest components out into the far reaches of the galaxy.

But can I go with him when he talks about the 5 layers of the Resurrection?

[Keep in mind that I said in a post last week that I could never imagine saying 3 things:  A) Paul didn't write that book B) Jesus probably didn't say that sentence and C) the Bible is wrong about that ]

It is interesting to me that Philip comes from much the same background as I do. It was because of his work that Claremont School of Theology first came onto my radar. I love his vision as the new Dean for the school and have gone on to read several of his books. His conversation with Tony Jones at an Emergent Theological cohort gathering is something I still reference monthly. I get what Philip is saying and I am down with what Philip is up to. Clayton speaks to me. I quote him often in sermons and coffee-shop conversations.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have no affection for tradition-for-tradition’s-sake and I don’t even have one conservative bone in my body. I have no affinity for ceremony, ritual, sacrament, or obligation apart from their narrative value. But as I read Clayton’s newest book, I am confronted on nearly every page with the question “do you know what this would mean?”  This is edgy stuff. His work is innovative and daring and would be well over the line for those that I report to for ordination and accreditation.

 So I am left with two questions:

• How does one preach this stuff?
• What would it look like to let go and fall all the way down the rabbit hole of this kind of thinking?

 I am saved from too much torment by two entirely different convictions.

• The world is changing.
• As people of truth, we need to deal in what is true.

 The first reminds me that the world has always changed – which is good and healthy and necessary. Some say that the only difference is that we have moved,in human civilization,  from incremental change to a period of exponential change.

The second reminds me that we can say things like “You shall know that truth…” or “All truth is God’s truth” and then act like they had it right in the 3rd century. No, if we are to be people of truth, then we need to pursue truth – wherever it leads.

Pursuing truth may lead us to conclusions that are different than our traditions have expressed. It may lead to us revisiting some things that we have held dear.  But what is the alternative?  To hang on to outdated and outmoded sentimentalities that have little to do with reality and the world as-it-is? Or to continue to play word games in our ecclesiastical silos that have little bearing on the real way people live outside our theological conclaves?

No. We need this. We must to do this. We have to take seriously the landscape that is in front of us and navigate the actual terrain that we occupy. Otherwise we risk living in the conceptual map and never walking on the land as it really is.

That is the predicament of believing Philip Clayton.

you can also check out this earlier post & video (and podcast)  for a great discussion 

Great Intro Text for $9.99 on Kindle!

spirituality?  Is it an asset to Christian Theology?

In this amazing video series Christian theologian and philosopher of science Philip Clayton tells scientific story of emergent evolution and invites the viewer into an evolutionary spirituality.  The video series was produced by Travis from The Work of the People \ Alter Video Magazine and recorded during the Emergent Village Theological Conversation at Claremont School of Theology.

Video #1 (Origins of the Universe)

It used to be that science was thought to have nothing to do with us. In this first of five videos
on “Emergent Evolution, Spirituality and God,” Philip Clayton explains how we are in fact part of the
grander story of the universe. This brief history of the cosmos shows how we belong to the narrative of
continual emergence that is the history of the cosmos. Understanding the physics of the universe’s birth
helps one to see how humanity fits into the universal story. (And what about life on other planets?)

Video #2 (Origins of Life)

Is life the result of a miraculous divine intervention, or is it an inevitable byproduct of the laws of physics
and chemistry — or both? In this second video of the series “Emergent Evolution, Spirituality and God,”
Philip Clayton describes current scientific thinking about the origins of life on earth. We see how life is
influenced from the beginning by natural selection, which produces increasingly complex organisms over
time. Can this process be seen as the means for generating increasing levels of spiritual possibility?

Video #3 (Symbiosis versus Competition)

We are often taught that evolution requires the concept of “competition” to be at its very core. In this
third video of the series “Emergent Evolution, Spirituality and God,” Philip Clayton talks about recent
scientific discoveries that show how organisms work together symbiotically to create ever new forms
of cooperation. More than just being “red in tooth and claw,” nature seems to act in powerful ways
through cooperation across a vast variety of ecosystems. It appears that some scientists have projected
their own (materialist, sexist, or atheist) values onto the data that they are seeking to interpret.

Video #4 (The Coevolution of Biology and Culture)

Could it be that more than just biology is involved in the evolutionary process? In this fourth video of
the series “Emergent Evolution, Spirituality and God,” Philip Clayton shares the concept of coevolution,
the idea that cultural and biological forces both play a role in determining the broader trajectory of
living organisms. Through the phenomenon of social learning—that is, being taught new skills by friends
and relatives that are not genetically programmed—we begin to see that evolution includes social and
cultural influences as well. Genes and cells are apparently not the only determiners of who we and the
other animals become; agency and intentions play central roles as well.

Video #5 (Evolution, Spirit, and Spirituality)

In the centuries after Newton, science was held not only to exclude “spirit” but also to disprove its
existence. In this final video of the series “Emergent Evolution, Spirituality and God,” Philip Clayton
argues that recent changes in the interpretation of science actually invite the non-material back into
the conversation. The question confronting us now becomes whether we think of the universe as
functioning only reductively—with all true explanations lying ultimately at the level of physics—or as
full of possibility, with newness emerging from sources all around us. If the universe is really “upwardly
open” in this way, science and religion may serve as partners in addressing life’s deepest questions:
what is the meaning of life? What matters; what is of value? And what does it all point to in the end?

Prof. Jeffery Kripal joins the podcast this week to philosophize about his love for the paranormal and mystical part of human experience.  In doing so he turns to the wonderful world of comic books and science fiction but not as a reporter or historian but as a place where deep metaphysical issues and religious questions are being addressed through pop culture.  I have been thrilled to share this conversation ever since we recorded it.  While many of our regular listeners won’t be able to go everywhere Jeff goes philosophically…Gnosticism & psychedelic drugs… I am confident his cultural exegesis and mapping of mystical narratives will have you entertained and intrigued.

Mutant Linkage…

* Mutants & Mystics was a Patheos book club so there are a ton of blog reviews, a Kripal interview, round table, sample from the book, and more…check it out.

* Ryan Parker has the most uber-awesome review of the book

* If you dig the interview check out Jeff’s podcast The Impossible Talk Podcast where he and his film making partner Scott Hulan Jones have “sophisticated, open discussions of and lectures on the paranormal and anomalous dimensions of American culture.”

*Now for a fun moment from X-men…

Rachel & Tripp Talking 1 from tripp fuller on Vimeo.

Here’s Tom’s visit to Homebrewed Christianity and his appearance at Nick & Josh that other podcast.

Keith Ward: ‘Why There Almost Certainly Is a God: Doubting Dawkins from Metanexus Institute on Vimeo.

Clayton is a well known theist and Dennett an atheist, but the two thinkers did not merely decry each other’s positions for an hour. Rather, Clayton proposed that moderate theists such as him betray popular opinions about the war between religion and science because they agree with many of Dennett’s scientific, philosophical, and religious critiques. Given these agreements, atheists and moderate theists should be able to engage in rational philosophical discussion about their positions instead of angry polemics. Dennett agreed that such a result would be interesting.

The first half of the debate dealt with what counts as an acceptable explanation for natural phenomena like human intentions. Do we make free choices as it seems or do physical processes determine all we do? Both men espoused a position Clayton referred to as “broad naturalism.” This is the belief that many natural explanations, including those from human sciences, can be given for the different areas of inquiry in the world. So the creation of human cells is explained by chemistry and biology, but human agency is best explained in terms of genuinely free choices. Mutual assent to this position created the debate’s first odd moment because Clayton continually insisted Dennett affirms the “hegemony of the physical” in his explanations. This would mean Dennett is not a realist concerning the example of mental causation. Free choices only seem free. They are actually fully determined by physical processes scientists can investigate. However, Dennett and Clayton both claimed that human agency is a real phenomenon. Had Clayton misread or even not read Dennett’s work? Not likely.

The direction of Clayton’s explanations is upward toward more complex levels of reality while Dennett’s explanations always face toward their physical base. For Dennett, complex levels of reality are always dependent on proper physical functioning. For example, Dennett pointed out that when certain areas in the front of the brain are damaged humans do not make rational choices but behave more like broken machines. He thinks explaining how someone chose to perform an action is a nice ideal, but only makes sense if physical processes are properly functioning. Clayton, on the other hand, emphasizes the independence of complex levels of reality from agency all the way to religion. Once either appears in the world there is no way to reduce it to scientific explanations in terms of physical processes alone. Clayton is well-known for his defense of “emergence” theory, of which this talk of agency is an example. Freedom did not appear from nowhere. Certain biological combinations in the brain made it possible. However, once freedom emerged from that biological basis it became irreducible to its physical basis. The whole really is greater than the parts.
It is odd that Dennett would not discuss a possible misunderstanding of his work concerning the possible reduction of all phenomena to physical processes. But the fact that theologians like Clayton engage science indicates bringing theology into agreement, or at least away from conflict, with scientific knowledge is desirable. So it is more peculiar that Clayton emphasized points of difference when Dennett was willing to publically agree over the issue of freedom even if deeper differences may have been lurking. Differences can certainly lead to an illuminating discussion, but it is shocking that a popular atheist verbally agreed with a theist and the theist was the one insisting on language of disagreement. As a result, the important aspect of this debate could come from Dennett’s perspective. He had a calm discussion with a religious person whom he did not have to denounce after every sentence uttered.

Setting aside the possible disagreement over whether all phenomena can be reduced to science, the second half of the debate focused on religion and revealed that two different directions of explanation were present in the discussion. Clayton’s upward looking view leads him to at least attempt and give reasons for religious belief while Dennett’s constant consideration of physical bases stops his inquiry earlier than that. Those different directions of explanation then result in very different worldviews.

Philip Clayton accepts three dimensions to the religious quest that exist on a continuum: searching for altruistic community, philosophically questioning truth claims, and overall worldview. So religions foster a sense of community and cooperation and those communities should do their best to deliberate over whether their beliefs are true. But religious explanations are most interesting when those communal attachments and philosophical questions can be linked to an overall worldview and thus taken as religious accounts of reality. Since these dimensions are part of one epistemic continuum from natural science to philosophical questions and eventually religion, Dennett should at least consider whether Clayton has good reasons for religious belief and debate the matter. Clayton will not even accept dogmatic religious claims to know the nature of God because they betray his dimension of philosophically questioning truth claims and prevent rational discussion with non-believers. Dennett actually accepts such open-ended inquiry. He referred to philosophy as that done until it is known what the right questions are. In other words, exploring even when answers are not known is a good thing. He just sees no relation between this quest and theology.

The lack of connection with theology seems due to Dennett stopping at the level of altruistic communities in Clayton’s continuum. Dennett only disapproves of fundamentalist dogmatism leading to violence in the name of God. This makes him different than Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens who refuse to acknowledge liberal Christians as Christians (or that other non-theistic religions even matter) amidst their attacks on fundamentalists. Dennett, on the other hand, calls liberal Christians “benign” compared to their dangerous, in his view, conservative counterparts. Like a benign tumor their existence is unnatural but not harmful. Religion is a fine phenomenon if it fosters a cooperative moral society.
Believers may not enjoy being an unnecessary social function that just happens not to interfere with society. Still, it is remarkable that Dennett was open to discussing something besides fundamentalist religious groups. He explained that his own work has not addressed liberal Christians because they do not curtail the dangerous elements within their religion. They are like a nice restaurant covering up mafia activities. If Dennett praised the benign Christians instead of debating the fundamentalists, people would get hurt. Clayton clearly state this view is empirically false. He and other moderate theists join Dennett in criticizing extremist forms of theism and are proactive in fostering more moderate claims. For example, the science of evolution is being taught in many churches together with forms of theism that are compatible with it. Dennett’s expression of pleasant surprise over these facts is quite an achievement, given that he and other popular atheists have mostly engaged extremist and politically conservative forms of Christianity, largely ignoring the beliefs and practices of more moderate religious communities. Perhaps the stage has been set for further dialogue in the future.

Still, beyond admitting that altruistic communities are a good thing, Dennett questioned whether he and Clayton have real material to discuss. If the ultimate goal of Clayton’s quest remains a mystery beyond the reach of science and reason, Dennett believes their discussion becomes “intellectual tennis without a net.” Without a standard for measuring different positions, it seems unnecessary to spend great time and energy pursuing the hard questions of religious worldviews. What difference does God make?

In the end, this passing of two intellectual ships may be its own profound conclusion. Clayton interprets grappling with questions of ultimate importance and following where they lead as the heart of religious life. Secularists, Dennett says, also inquire into an ultimate reality … the universe and laws of nature … while living full moral lives and pursuing interesting questions about the universe. So Dennett does not need God. And since Clayton will not play the “faith card” to claim absolute truth and end the debate, Dennett interprets Clayton as a secular humanist who is trying to learn the most about reality and live as morally as possible. Is the internal logic of Clayton’s religious position and Dennett’s secularism really the same in the end? The theist views the atheist as pursuing a quest that is deeply religious, while the theist comes off as secular to the atheist. How odd.  But if Dennett is not right that secular humanists capture all that is meaningful in Clayton’s position, Paul Tillich might provide a useful mediating approach.

Tillich famously stated that every human has an ultimate concern … be it money, the entire natural universe, or God. Is that the real moral of this story? The religious person might be concerned with the ultimate ground of existence and try to understand it, while the secular person is content to view the universe otherwise. Still, agreeing to disagree may not be the final word. Given different ultimate concerns, Clayton would be right to insist on rational discussion regarding his movement through levels of questioning toward a religious worldview. Dennett would still be free to reject that view, but only after considering Clayton’s steps to get there. If Dennett still sees no reason to engage in metaphysical pondering where Clayton cannot help but try, a clear difference has emerged. Indeed, such grasping at the ungraspable may be the beauty and irony of the religiously committed person.

* Thanks to my friend and brilliant friend Ben Chicka for writing this up!

This coming Thursday and Friday the Society for Philosophy and Religion at Claremont (SPARC) will be holding its second annual student conference “Live Options in the Study of Religion” in Claremont, California. If you look at the schedule below and click on the links to read the papers (not all are available because some are currently under review for publication elsewhere) you will notice that we have an odd smorgasbord of topics represented. That is the point. We want this to be a new sort of conference that brings different approaches to learning about religion together in creative tension. Getting graduate degrees too often means ignoring a breadth of interesting work being done in other areas of research. We are going to fix that problem, or at least try. Anyone interested in the dialogue between religion and science should also note that the first day of the conference is devoted to that topic.

The conference is free and open to the public, so everyone is encouraged to attend. For out-of-towners, stay tuned for information about videos of the conference that will be put online after the event.

Thursday, March 25^th – Albrecht Auditorium, Claremont Graduate University

3:00-3:10

Welcome and Introduction

Benjamin J. Chicka, President of SPARC

3:10-4:20

Putting God Under the Microscope: Can There Be a Science of Spirituality?

Eric Kyle, Claremont School of Theology

Why We Fight: Evolutionary Reconceptualizations of Pierre Bourdieu’s Political Economy of Symbolic Power

Kevin McGinnis, Claremont Graduate University

4:30-5:40

The Place of Religion in Philosophy of Science: An Exploration and Assessment

Jim Sharp, Claremont Graduate University

Indigenous Religions and Science: New Conversations, Same Miscommunication

David Walsh, Arizona State University

5:50-7:00

Cantor’s Transfinites and Divine Infinity

Fady El Chidiac, S.J.

Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University

Lesbianism and Islamic Law: Examining the Boundary Between Love and Legality

Catherine Mary Lafuente, Claremont Graduate University

Friday, March 26^th – Burkle 14, Claremont Graduate University Drucker School

3:00-3:30

Keynote

What Has the Enlightenment to Do with the Reformation? Religion as Revealed, as Rational, and as Historical

Paul Capetz, Professor of Historical Theology, United Theological Seminary

3:30-4:40

The Organic Church as Parable of Jesus

Jeffrey W. Roop, Claremont Graduate University

Catholic-Mormon Dialogue: Intersections Between ‘Scripture’ and ‘Tradition’

Donald A. Westbrook, Claremont Graduate University

4:50-6:00

The Ethereal Etched into the Existential: Auerbach and Benjamin’s Literary Philosophy as Displayed Theologically by Tori Amos and Illogic
Jon Ivan Gill, Claremont Graduate University

‘Why Such a Big Deal?’: The didactic function of humor in Tibetan Buddhism

Manny Fassihi, Stanford University

6:10-7:20

Mark C. Taylor’s Religion without God: Coming After (the Death of) God

Tino Garcia, University of California at Santa Barbara

Kierkegaard’s Militant Christianity and Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil

John Altick, University of California at Irvine

Nancey Murphy argues that Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) has overtaken Freud, Feuerbach, Neitzsche, and Marx as the most articulate and viable opponent of a realist affirmation of God’s existence.  David Sloan Wilson states the evolutionary account forcefully when he said that, “evolution is fundamentally about the relationship between organisms and their environments.  In the case of religion, it is about the relationship between religious groups and their environments, conceived broadly to include physical, economic, and social factors.”

Pascal Boyer has said, ‘all versions of religion are based on very similar tacit assumption, and that all it takes to imagine supernatural agents are normal human minds processing information in the most natural ways.’  If you don’t get the feel there check out Paul Bloom’s article ‘Is God an Accident?’ where he says, ‘Religious teachings certainly shape many of the specific beliefs we hold; nobody is born with the idea that the birthplace of humanity was the Garden of Eden, or that the soul enters the body at the moment of conception, or that martyrs will be rewarded with sexual access to scores of virgins. These ideas are learned. But the universal themes of religion are not learned. They emerge as accidental by-products of our mental systems. They are part of human nature.”

I have been spending time asking these questions, reading some pages, listening to lectures, and just thinking (check the links).  I also read ‘believing primate’ and in the book you get a variety of scientific, philosophical, and theological engagements with these issues.  Below is a conversation between Paul Bloom and Michael Murray (one of the editors) where the basic distinctions of the book appear. The video is well worth watching if you are interested in CSR and religion.  If it’s interesting the book is well worth reading. The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion

Here is Nancey Murphey & Jeffrey Schloss (both in the book) in conversation.  It takes 12 minutes for them to get into it but it is enjoyable afterward. They composed an article together title, ‘Biology and Religion’ which you can find here. You can find the introduction to the book here.

Here‘s Clayton’s Pre-Debate Post \ John gives a super recap \ Philip‘s post-debate reflection \ Bob Rhodes reflects on the conversation \ newspaper writeup

One could call it providence as Daniel Dennett is coming to Claremont to give a lecture February 16, and it just so happens that Philip Clayton, philosopher and theologian, is a tenured professor there.  Why is this intersection so intriguing?  Well A few months ago at Cambridge University’s celebration of Darwin, Daniel Dennett attended a session on evolution and religion in which Philip Clayton was a presenter.  Afterward Dennett ended up blogging about Clayton’s presentation on Richard Dawkins’ blog and concluding that, ‘in short Clayton is an atheist who won’t admit it.’  While calling him an ‘anonymous atheist’ is a clever way to avoid actually having a substantive conversation, it also assumes that Dennett gets to define Christianity and determine who truly belongs in it (a popular New Atheist tactic).  This time Clayton is revealed to be an atheist because he doesn’t hold to all the traditional divine attributes such as divine omnipotence (of course there are plenty of Christians, including rather conservative ones, who recognize the origin of these omni-divine attributes being Hellenistic philosophy rather than anything specifically Christian).  After Dennett blogged on the disturbing experience of attending a session where people believe and think differently than him, Clayton posted his paper online and noted that:

I do find it a bit surprising that Dan chose not to mention any of the philosophical questions that we debated. Clearly his rhetoric style here plays to the usual readers of Richard Dawkins’ website who, as one can see, are lapping up his words. But it is a bit of a pity that Dan neglected to mention the call to dialogue, which was the central point of my paper and of our public debate. In fact, isn’t his choice of rhetoric instead of argument an instance of exactly what he is accusing theologians of doing? One can’t help but see some signs of a philosopher who has rather lost interest in philosophical debate.

Well maybe Dennett can get out from behind his pulpit and have a serious philosophical debate.  If he is right about Clayton being an atheist, then he may not only win the debate, but get Philip run out of his job, one focused on teaching theology to future ministers.  Of course Dennett can always do what he did last time…move on and rant online about it later.

Here‘s Philip’s blog invite!

Regarding the review itself, it’s a hard publication to get over in the States because it’s not published in any sort of electronic form. But if you’re ever in a library and are dying to read a book review, check it out.

Here’s a fun video of Philip Clayton talking with Spencer Burke about emergence, science, and the future of the church. If you watch it and think man that was serious camera work, then you will have to think Spencer’s editor because I am not a steady hand award nominee.

If you haven’t checked out Spencer’s show think fwd you will find a bunch of other videos for the viewing, along with questions for the asking.

You can order Philip’s new book, Transforming Christian Theology (in collaboration with me!) and then order copies for all your friends and family.

John Polkinghorne,

In a review posted at the New Humanist by AC Grayling you get a taste of the self-fulfilling hermeneutic imployed by the New Athiests when reading articulate scientists who likewise have faith.  After complaining about Plokinghorne’s use of the strong anthrophic principle (a legitimit criticism) and Christians who continue to interpet scripture in light of best scientific and historical data, Grayling shoots straight with his readers:

Thus in short, on the religious side of things you make up truth as you go along, by interpreting and reinterpreting scripture to suit your needs and to avoid refutation by confrontation with plain fact; and thus it is that Beale-Polkinghorne can claim that both science and religion seek truth.

Now if you don’t see a scientific fundamentalist heremeneutic being used let me rewrite it as if I was a Biblical Fundy.

Thus in short, these dimwit scientists keep making up truth as they go along.  They just keep interpreting and reinterpreting so-called evidence and data to suit their needs and to avoid refutation by confrontation with plain facts of scripture. Today we got a warming planet, but when I was in school they told me my areosal hair spray was going to lead to a global freeze…..

The point is not that science or religion should or shouldn’t impose on the other, that relationship can be handled elsewhere.  What bothers me is a form of science or religion that sees the truth it seeks to speak of as above or prior to interpretation.  I actually think science is privileged above other forms of knowledge because of its verifiability, but we shouldn’t forget that the interpretation of the data today can and will be different in fifty years.  It will be different because it is committed to truth. This continuing interpetive process is in fact how we make and keep our ideas clear.

Grayling cannot stand the idea of science and religion both seeking truth together and so his evangelical atheist rhetoric flares up:

I would call this dishonest if I did not think it is in fact delusion, which, since a kind of lunatic sincerity is involved, it rather palpably shows itself to be. And it happens that ‘lunatic’ is appropriate here, for the painful experience of wading through this book gave me an epiphany: that religious faith is extremely similar to the kind of conspiracy theory that sufferers from paranoid delusions can hold: the faithful see a purposive hand in everything, plotting and controlling and guiding, and interpret all their experience accordingly.

From my reading of Polkinghorne he is not attempting to reject or manipulate the eye towards scientific data, but to demonstrate the possibility of there being ‘more much more than meets the eye.’  Like many of his New Atheist counterparts, Grayling’s inability to tolerate a religous interpretation of the data leads him to avoid actually debating where the scientific data eliminates this interpretation.

Popular Science interviewed Polkinghorne and you can find that here.

I hope you enjoy listening to the audio and more than that I pray that Cobb’s voice will help inspire more of us to participate in the change we need.

Is it too late? Earth Day 2009 with John Cobb (Click to stream audio OR right-click and save-as to download the MP3)

REPOSTED FROM TRANSFORMING THEOLOGY (Comment There)

A recent study by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded that, ‘Greenhouse gas levels currently expected by mid-century will produce devastating long-term droughts and a sea-level rise that will persist for 1,000 years regardless of how well the world curbs future emissions of carbon dioxide.’  The dramatic rise in CO2 is also making the ocean more acidic which has other drastic consequences. This is serious stuff and not something we can ignore any longer.

In just the last 200 years since humanity developed the technology able to contribute to this problem we have amassed consequences that will last over a thousand years.  We have already set ourselves on a tragic course that will greatly effect the world’s poor and our future generations even more.

While at first I thought comparing the ecological crisis to the Titanic was a bit much, after beginning to think about it more it might be more accurate than I thought.  Our overconfidence in human machinery, obsession with our own power, and ignorance of the world around us has brought us here.  We’ve already done so much damage, we can’t stall changing now.  This is indeed a conversation we need to have.

I agree with Barthian’s who confess that there is something particular in the revelation of God in Christ, but not in the rejection of religion as a whole, even Wilson notes some of religion’s important functions in human history.  I also agree with Wilson that religion has and will continue to change or transform through human history, it is indeed (at least in part) a construct of human existential needs and desires that is described and practiced through human communities and with human language.  That religion is really human however, shouldn’t be a threat to religion and our response as a people of faith doesn’t need to be either a rejection of the scientific endeavor nor a blanket acceptance of a scientific interpretation that we try to cram God into.  All truth is God’s truth and all our claims to it, scientific and religious, are partial and more or less functional.  A more functional religious interpretation of the world will engage and be transformed by the best science but in doing so I think we will find there is much we can say about religion than Wilson imagines.

Drew has a great blog post on the article you should all check out and so does Pastor Bob.  Of course there was this cool podcast I would recomend.