Gadianton wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 1:29 am
I read two reviews of Hart's book, one good and one bad. The
glowering review from Christianscholars.com convinced me reading the book would be a waste of time. Sometimes that happens. For instance, Reverend Kishkuman's favorable review of
Witnesses convinced me that I probably wouldn't be able to sit through it, even for the sake of morbid entertainment.
Glowing review, Dean? A glowering review would be a negative one, no? One in which the reviewer is metaphorically glowering at the book and its author?
In any case, I am happy to have saved you the trouble of seeing a movie you would evidently hate. I found it fun, but that's me.
That being said, in the case of Hart's book, not because the book is a joke, it's probably pretty good for what it is, I just don't think that what it is will tell me anything radically new.
That could well be the case. I don't spend a lot of time with theology, philosophy, and so forth. I found it useful, but I was in the market for a more popular approach, albeit one that is still relatively meaty and well thought out.
These quotes sum up the greater part of the review:
reviewer wrote:The “New Atheists” write sophomoric books caricaturing religious belief, and their fans gather before atheist self-help preachers and employ a rocking band to set the mood. David Bentley Hart believes that the new atheism fits very well with the spirit of our shallow, consumer civilization.
reviewer wrote:When the New Atheists rail on religious belief, they are rarely if ever speaking of any God affirmed in any version of classical theism.
reviewer wrote:Hart contends that modern religious fundamentalists and atheists, alike, are working with a concept of “God” that is more akin to what ancient peoples, even the ancient Hebrews, referred to as the “gods.”
A lot of Christians probably see Hart as a life raft in this effort, so I doubt they are the best reviewers of his work. They are like "wow, a really smart dude full of confidence and swagger who puts the atheists in their place." Like Nibley on the shelf.
I'll quickly note in the spirit of my challenge to Don in my last post, that Mormons are working with a concept of "God" that is more akin to what ancient peoples believed, and rejecting classical theism is something Mormons wear as a badge of honor.
Yeah, and I think that Nauvoo/Brigham theology went too far. Current LDS theology is a real mess in my view and nothing that can stand up to challenges from the outside. The basic appeal of LDS theology is that it serves as a surface refutation of some of the worst aspects of Augustinian and Calvinist theology. And that is not to poo-poo the value of attacking the uglier parts of those views. What Hart may inadvertently achieve is demonstrating that Orthodox theology already addressed many of those problems better than Mormonism could.
Mormonism is also much worse, to my limited understanding, at addressing atheist arguments. At least I can see how Classical theism is plausibly defensible against atheist attacks. Mormonism? Certainly current LDS theology hasn't a leg to stand on.
Rubs me the wrong way like crazy. The Philosophy of Mind may be the most active area of analytic philosophy in the last 60 years, and all the good material against "physicalism" -- which is what we call it now, not materialism -- is written by other atheist philosophers with no interest in God. Will Hart's rejection of physicalism be more profound than the atheist (naturalist) David Chalmers? Daniel Dennett himself rejects reductive physicalism. All the New Atheists do, I think, Pinker is the other guy whose framework wouldn't make sense in reductive physicalism. Chalmers rejects the weakest versions of physicalism, but the thing is, none of the alternatives are enhanced by God. The first issue here is the very issue of why philosophy of mind is a philosophical discussion and not science discussion. One example. Richard Rorty and David Lewis both have fun examples of encountering aliens wired totally different than humans. Maybe their biology is so different (maybe even machines? Dennett) or their mannerisms that we're at a loss of ascribing a first person experience to them -- do they feel pain, etc? How would you prove that they do or don't? For that matter, how do you know other people have a first-person experience? Shared biology (Sober) or behavior; hardly proof, but without it, what? Now, how would God help settle the problem of other minds aside from declaring the other mind sentient? That other minds is a vexing problem that science probably can't solve and that philosophers can debate forever, doesn't mean it's a limitation of a variety where God helps. Compare to suddenly finding your car keys. In principle, that is a gap that God possibly explains, even if we hold a high bar for a standard of evidence, I can imagine God explaining a physical anomaly far easier than I can imagine God solving the problem of other minds. In physics problems, God intervening makes sense in principle, in philosophy, the principle is the thing we don't understand in the first place.
Interesting. I was aware of the term physicalism, but, honestly, materialism is just a lot easier for a layperson like me to work with, and at least as a term it overlaps some with internal Mormon discussions. My recollection of Hart on this question is that he contrasts two views, one in which consciousness emerges as kind of a serendipitous accident in a universe of meaninglessness and one in which God is consciousness writ large and that reality is thus pregnant with intelligence and meaning. Honestly it has been some months since I read it, and I know I am not doing this justice. He admittedly does not frame the problem in terms of engaging with the latest Philosophy of Mind arguments. He is laying things out in the big picture and contrasting overall assumptions and approaches.
When it comes down to it, most physicalist arguments I have read did not resonate with my experience of life, and I don't see that it is necessary to hold such views to be a rational thinker and a decent human being. Do the believers have great answers to rebut atheist arguments? For the most part, I think not. Surely science and philosophy continue to expand our understanding of the cosmos much more than Christian theology, and yet I am not sure it is a condemnation of belief in divinity or divinities that scientists and philosophers in the atheist camp are making most of the forward progress. To an extent, that may be incidental, especially on the science side. Less so perhaps in philosophy.
Not mentioned is the ontological argument, which in my opinion, is the only argument for God, and the only proper way to define God. One thing that I can respect about the ontological argument is that it was actually conceived of by a theologian and original to theology, it isn't high philosophy somebody else thought of aped to the cause of God. I'm not going to defend that argument in this post as already this is long, I realize the ontological argument sounds totally silly, but, just putting it out there that if I were to go back and question my atheism, I'd start by reviewing the ontological argument.
Cool! I look forward to it!
“The past no longer belongs only to those who once lived it; the past belongs to those who claim it, and are willing to explore it, and to infuse it with meaning for those alive today.”—Margaret Atwood