A common objective?
Tom Clark argues with the theologian John Haught. He starts out with some common ground – or perhaps not.
As much as their worldviews differ, both naturalists and anti-naturalists share a common objective: getting the nature of reality right according to their best lights.
I don’t really think that’s true – at least not of anti-naturalists of the type discussed in the article. I thought that as soon as I read it, then as I read the rest of the article I found places where Clark makes points that are (at least) in tension with it. It seemed to me as soon as I read it, and then thought about it, that anti-naturalists are motivated in their anti-naturalism by something other than getting the nature of reality right. I think what they want to do is get the nature of reality into alignment with their wishes, and that getting it right is subservient to that goal.
And what comes after that passage simply bears that out.
From Haugh:
Do our new atheists seriously believe …that if a personal God of infinite beauty and unbounded love actually exists, the ‘evidence’ for this God’s existence could be gathered as cheaply as the evidence for a scientific hypothesis?
But why should anyone think that, even if there is a ‘God,’ it is one of infinite beauty and unbounded love? If your goal is to get the nature of reality right, you start by taking an impartial look (to the best of your ability) at reality, at the world as it is; if you do that, do you think that beauty and love describe the world? Not if you really take a look. Not if you know anything about it. If you really look, you know very well that there is a lot of ugliness and misery too, and that a god of beauty and love seems at the very least incomplete as a god of this world and this reality.
Haught further says that to decide the question of God’s existence it is necessary to open oneself ‘to the personal transformation essential to faith’s sense of being grasped by an unbounded love.’ Clark comments:
[W]e see that detecting the object of knowledge – infinite Love, should it exist – requires receptivity to the possibility of its existence on the part of the knower. But of course being receptive is patently to be psychologically biased in favor of the possibility, to be susceptible to a certain interpretation of one’s experience, namely that one is being embraced by god. So right away we encounter a stark contrast between Haught’s theological mode of knowing and ordinary empirical inquiry, in which subjective biases in favor of certain hypotheses are seen as threats to objectivity. For those concerned about whether their preconceptions and desires might be distorting their grasp of reality, that is, anyone interested in truth as opposed to wishful thinking, the theological requirement of receptivity raises a bright red flag.
Exactly. Which is why I’m not sure naturalists and anti-naturalists do share the common objective of getting the nature of reality right.
It’s an excellent article; read the whole thing.
I like the sneering tone, calling scientific hypotheses “cheap”. Clearly all that work humanity has done to extend our range of senses out to the edges of the universe, the beginnings of time, and to the subatomic level is a mere parlor trick compared to the theologian’s job.
I really like Clark’s work in general and consider it quite important, mostly because I see the whole “New Atheism” public relations and awareness-raising blitz as necessary but not sufficient.
Clark and others like him (John Shook) do invaluable work in promoting a sound philosophical basis for a naturalistic worldview that goes beyond the rejection of a particular religious worldview.
Not that people like Dawkins aren’t also promoting the scientific worlview and therefore implicitly naturalism (though to a philosopher that may seem a sleight of hand). It’s simply a matter of emphasis – and right now the emphasis of the public debate is (rightly) on fighting the existing religious myths and superstitions.
People like Clark don’t get as much publicity because “philosophy” is always a minority program – unfortunately. But I am glad we have this multi-pronged approach with different proponents advancing the same basic ideas and the same worldview through different approaches.
An excellent question, seldom asked. If there is a God (meaning an agentive, conscious entity, not some “force” or “principle”), then how do you know it’s not Zeus or one of the indifferent Mesopotamian gods or Cthulhu? And anyway any god that can send people to hell for eternity can’t be all that loving, can he?
Jenavir and Tingey,
I do agree with what you are both positing re: science. But it is not at the extreme edges of Science that Haught’s views become troubling. That is putting science on a pedestal that it should reject. It is at all levels of science that basic concepts of falsifiability and evidence are paramount. MMR anyone?
And more specifically, Tingey, you state that scientific paradigms become “obvious”. Who makes this claim, you?
Do a simple double slit experiment and explain to me what’s obvious about it. Observable..yes…the paradigm obvious? No way.
Re: Double Slit.
Exactly. Which is my point.
As for obvious. It is that word – obvious – that irks me. That’s all.
Useful, yes. Enlightening, yes. Mind-blowing, yes. Obvious, no fcuking way. Double slit again.
This is semantics, but it diminishes the achievements to name them “obvious”.
Yes but that was the point – the ‘obvious’ was ironic. It can be hard to tell when Tingey is doing irony, but if you look closely, he’s doing it there.
I’ll give you 50% of that, OB.
The irony is somewhat negated by the “no, it wasn’t at the time”.
In any case, I clarified what irked me – the (mis)use of the word Obvious. Not Tingey’s arguement.
Dragging this out further, in an attempt to explain my position.
In some cases, yup, obvious (in the Huxley sense you describe above) and in others, such as the wonderfully simple double slit, the results just scrape at your brain!