Say anything
James Hannam re-states his case in a comment on It’s not a majority vote issue.
[L]ooking back, a clear lesson seems to be that the accommodationists got things done. So even if Coyne and Myers are right (and of course, I don’t think they are) about the incompatibility of religion and evolution, prior experience suggests that they should nonetheless respect differences and even hold their noses for the good of science. No one would expect them to hide their views. But at the moment, they give the impression that they are partisans for atheism rather than for evolution.
The first question is: what things did accommodationists get done, and what connection did the accommodationism have with the getting things done? What exactly is the claim here? That accommodationists got things done that they would not have gotten done if they had not been accommodationists? And that the things they got done were more important or valuable than any other things they might have gotten done if they had not been accommodationists? In other words, there are a lot of variables here, and a lot of counter-factuals, and it’s simply not clear that ‘the accommodationists got things done’ says anything as clear-cut or useful as Hannam thinks it does (or rather, perhaps, hopes it does). In other other words it’s a very loose, vague claim, which does not justify that ‘So’ in the next sentence. No, prior experience does not suggest that they should ‘respect differences,’ much less that they should ‘hold their noses for the good of science’ – which in this context has to mean ‘hold their noses and conceal what they take to be the truth for the good of science.’
Of course, one can’t make one’s whole case every time one says anything – but one can avoid making large empty claims such as ‘the accommodationists got things done’ in order to back up a further claim that scientists should conceal what they take to be the truth. One can be more careful than that.
Here’s the problem: You have a group of people who reject evolution because of their religious beliefs. You have a mission to educate these people. Do you:
a) explain that many of their learned co-believers have thought carefully about this issue and don’t think there is a contradiction;
b) say nothing to these people and let the likes of Coyne, Dawkins and Myers convince them that they are right to be scared through other channels.Now, if you care about evolution, this looks like a no-brainer to me.
Well, that’s because you haven’t thought about it carefully enough. One, the ‘mission to educate these people’ is not the only mission. There are a lot of ‘missions’ in play; educating people who reject evolution because of their religious beliefs is only one of them; it is not self-evident that that one ‘mission’ should trump all the others; it is in any case not self-evident that the only or best way to ‘educate these people’ is by concealing what one takes to be the truth.
Two, a) and b) represent a false dilemma. There are (as so often) more than two possibilities here, and a) and b) are very crude tendentious versions even of the two possibilities they purport to represent. One can, for instance, do a) and do other things too, one of which would be to explain why there is a contradiction, or, if you want to hedge, why many other people think there is a contradiction.
There is a whole range of possibilities, and narrowing it down to 1) talk soothing communitarian wool about what lots of learned people have thought or 2) let those pesky fundamentalist atheists scare everyone into church school, is neither productive nor interesting.
The fundamental blankness behind this way of arguing seems to be a complete blindness to the fact that some people prefer trying to get at the truth to trying to manipulate other people. Over and over we keep coming back to this ‘whatever you think the truth is, you should say that science and religion are perfectly compatible, for purely instrumental short-term reasons’ idea. It’s depressing. It’s tawdry. It’s as if all of life were an endless US presidential campaign, where the only goal is to win and no lie is too gross if only it might win West Virginia.
You summarized Mooney’s stance succinctly.
I agree with you wholeheartedly OB, people should speak the truth as they see it and be prepared to listen to others and change their mind according to the reasons given. My concerns I felt a month or so ago were about tone and direct personal insults, not content.
I find the suggestion that people should strategically tailor the content of their expression to be incompatible with the spirit of free enquiry. I think it’s the religious who need to come to the table on this one, not the other way around. I don’t think Hannam’s prescription of dishonest intellectual self-censorship is conducive to any kind of genuine progress at all.
Can I just say thank you for that?
Much better put than I failed to do!
James’ view/style does strongly resemble that of the Nicholas Beale when the latter was interacting on “Talking Philosophy”. Why do white, Christian, European males need to think they have always been smarter than everyone else. Just read the blurb on jameshannam.com for his book “God’s Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science” – even during the so-called “dark ages”, WCEMs were still a “cut above” (e.g. “Ideas from the Far East, like printing, gunpowder and the compass were taken further by Europeans than the Chinese had imagined possible.”). One needs to distinguish between what people did because of the influence of Christianity and what they did in spite that same influence.
‘James’ view/style does strongly resemble that of the Nicholas Beale when the latter was interacting on “Talking Philosophy”.’
Indeed. I nearly said that yesterday (then, I suppose, decided not to raise other ghosts).
Wouldn’t Christian apologist be a more apt descriptor than historian?
I think he constructs a strawman with “You have a mission to educate these people”.
As a geologist, I don’t see it as my mission to educate Creationists, just the teachable. Disagreeing with creationists is important to ensure the teachable don’t get misled by Creationists.
“One needs to distinguish between what people did because of the influence of Christianity and what they did in spite that same influence.”
They did all the bad things because of Christianity and all the good things in spite of Christianity, right?. Isn’t that how the story usually goes?.
I take your point that the question of whether there are scientists who has a matter of fact believe religious claims is quite a separate thing from the question of whether science and religion are philosophically compatible.
But the claim that religion and science are philosophically incompatible is itself a philosophical claim and a controversial one about which a great many reasonable, informed people disagree. Evolution is a fact about which there is no serious disagreement.
The public should certainly know the truth and shouldn’t be manipulated. They should know that creationism is indisputably false but that it is controversial whether religion and science are philosophical compatible and that a significant number of scientists and philosophers believe that they are. That is not fudging on the Truth for soothing communitarian purposes.
Humphrey,
You are the one who posts on an apologetics blog and you are accusing me of bias?. What a hoot.
You presume modern science to be good so you want to claim it for Christianity and you presume Christianity to be the cause because it controlled the intellectual centers of Europe when modern science arose. First, I am not convinced modern science is necessarily good and second, Christianity’s early influence carried some serious baggage we are still trying to jettison.
Some would say the Christian belief we are almost God inspired us to both understand and attempt to control our world. It encouraged us to believe we are apart from nature rather than a part of nature. Although we understand much more about our universe than we did 1000 years ago, our knowledge is certainly not godlike and we make many mistakes. The belief we are a part from nature is coming back to bite us on the butt. We need the world to understand we evolved from and with other living things.
When I was a biology graduate student, I saw a poll claiming a majority of people in the states are afraid of scientists because of what scientists know. I replied that we should be afraid of scientists because of what they think they know. The arrogance that may well have led to modern science has not always served it well.
H. E.
How controversial is it really? How controversial is it, independent of the desire either to protect one’s own beliefs or to defer to the beliefs of others? Would it be as controversial as it is if there were not an existing body of religious beliefs that are widely seen as needing protection?
In other words I take your point, but I also suspect that a lot of that controversy is not philosophical so much as motivated. I only suspect it though. (I’ve read a lot of putative controversy that looks motivated, lately.)
Snort – I just noticed that you said you take my point. I didn’t mean to parrot you! But there’s no other way to say that, is there.
“You are the one who posts on an apologetics blog and you are accusing me of bias?.”
Yes, I do post on a science-religion blog for an apologetics site but I mainly write on the history of science and the history of ideas. If you do this you have to cross-check everything against what major scholars are saying in that particular field. That Christianity was one major factor in the rise of modern science is fairly uncontroversial (see Lindberg, Gaukroger, Harrison, Grant) hence it is not ‘apologetics’ to write about it. It would be if I pointed to it and said ‘look, this means everyone has to worship Yahweh and accept the trinity’ but I haven’t. Certainly I wouldn’t want to ‘claim’ modern science for Christianity (I have written against this), not least because it downplays the achievements of the ancient Greeks and the Islamic Natural Philoshophers (and later the deists, atheists and of course the Jewish contribution)
In this particular case you have referred to the thesis of Lynn White, Jr , a Christian who claimed that the arrogance of the Judeo-Christian worldview (“the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen”) is what lies behind the destruction of nature. I think this is partially correct, particularly with reference to early modern prodestantism; I don’t buy the broader thesis. Scholars such as Bratton, Santmire, Sorrel, and Glacken found that medieval theolgy in paticualr encouraged an appreciation of nature on its own terms and that there were spiritual obligations governing mankinds use of animals and nature. There is also strong evidence that non western and pre-christian cultures have caused create enviromental damage and scholars such as Passmore and Mitcham have found a sympathetic attitude toward human control of the natural enviroment in classical (mainly stoic) writers. I think therefore that there is nothing inherent in Christian doctrine that uniquely sanctions the abuse of the environment (witness the environmental disaster going on in China). It seems to be just another regrettable attribute of humanity.
So what you are saying is Christianity is blameless?
Where is the ecological/evolutionary part of Christian theology?
Unlike White I am not blaming Christianity for ecological destruction. It is just that it did nothing to stop it. Just like you can’t blame Christianity for slavery as slavery existed long before Christianity, but for most of its history Christianity did nothing to stop slavery. If Christianity had an explicit understanding of the evolutionary and ecological kinship of the living and nonliving world, then maybe modern science would never have developed. Steve Fuller seems to think this.
Hi Michael
Lynn White, as a historian is more concerned with how the bible has been interpreted than with what it actually says, and here it is undeniable that the text has sometimes been interpreted to legitimise the technological domination of the non human world; it is also undeniable that it has been used to justify slavery, however dubious the interpretation.
Looking at the actual theology, well we could start with Genesis and the theological account of creation given by the ancient Hebrews. Here humans are given dominion and told to subdue the earth because they are created in God’s Image. This is probably the most misunderstood passage with regard to the ecology issue because some environmentalists have argued that ‘dominion’ and ‘subdue’ are strong words which justify an aggressive approach to nature. The problem with this is that the Hebrew words for ‘dominion’ and ‘subdue’ do not actually refer to exploitative action on their own; it very much depends on the context in which they are used. The context of Genesis 1 is that humans are given dominion, created in the image of God and told to subdue the earth. The implication is that humanity has to reflect the character of the creator with wisdom, love, care and justice and is answerable in the exercise of it’s dominion. Moreover, the creation is pronounced ‘very good’, implying the creation’s goodness should be preserved and developed. It is the possession of mankind but for it’s safekeeping and tending. Thus for example, John Calvin concluded:
“The earth was given to man with this condition, that he should occupy himself in its cultivation … The custody of the garden was given in charge to Adam, to show that we possess the things that God has committed to our hands, on the condition, that being content with frugal and moderate use of them, we should take care of what shall remain … Let everyone regard himself as the steward of God in all things which he possesses. Then will he neither conduct himself dissolutely, nor corrupt by abuse those things which God requires to be preserved.”
Therefore I think the original intent of the text authorised a kind of ‘wise stewardship’. However as Lynn White points out:
‘The historical impact of Christianity upon ecology…has depended not on what we individually, at present, may think that Christianity should have been, but rather upon what the vast ‘orthodox’ majority of Christians have in fact thought it was’.
And it has failed miserably to protect the environment.
You just can’t do it, can you? You can’t admit Christianity lacks an ecological component and has allowed for destruction of the environment. (You can’t even admit that it is to blame for anything. You sound like the National Rifle Association here in the states with their line – “guns don’t kill people, people do”.) I have repeatedly said that environmental destruction did not originate in Christianity – which would be obviously false. It seems to be inherent in many agricultural societies when ruling elites are no longer connected to providing food and shelter.
What Christianity did not require was its missionaries find out about the local ecosystem before it converted its peoples; this is not a component of the religion. Christianity is about saving souls not sustaining ecosystems. Take the Chumash near Santa Barbara California, they had lived there for at least 10,000 years before European contact. Did the Europeans show any interest in learning from these people? No, they systematically wiped out their culture and the knowledge of living in one place for 10,000 years. Was it due to Christianity? Well they were certainly Christians and the product of a Christian culture.
Please let me know where in the New Testament any mention of a human’s role in the ecosystem is explicitly discussed. Jesus alludes to the rest of nature, but this is not incorporated into the core beliefs of the faith. Hard to see anything ecological in the Nicene Creed.
Many religions have failed in this aspect and their accompanying civilizations have collapsed as a result. Your job as a Christian apologist should be to convince theologians to incorporate this component into your religion not to wave it off as misinterpretation.
You either work to transform your religion or accept its past interpretations as being correct. Certainly Christians worked actively to abolish slavery, but this was rather late in the game. For instance, England managed to abolish it 1000 years after Christianity arrived.
Why is a book supposedly written by God so easy to misinterpret?
Well I’m not going to concede that Christianity lacks a ecological component because I think that’s false. The Gospels present themselves as continuations of the old testament story and takes for granted it’s account of the non human creation. The bible is full of allusions to humanity’s relationship to the rest of creation. The most relevant statement from the New Testament is probably Romans 8:19-22, along with Col 1:20 where the non human creation is said to be “waiting in eager expectation” (v. 19) and “groaning”. Paul’s speech is is the tradition of the psalmists and the prophets and he suggests that if creation has suffered the consequences of human sin, it will also enjoy the fruits of human deliverance. He also alludes to the words of Issiah that “the earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes, and broken the
everlasting covenant”. The two other themes I would point to are the idea of the incarnation of God as part of the physical world (in which creation was seen to be sacralized) and the idea of conformity to the image of God in Christ
which includes the wise and loving stewardship of the created world implied in the OT.
However, I will concede that the Christian tradition has often got it wrong and time and time again has been guilty of downplaying nature. I don’t think this is biblically based. Rather it stems from, in the early church, the adoption of Platonism which saw the material world as inferior and human beings as souls whose destiny is to escape to the realm of spirit. The defence against this was the idea of bodily resurrection but nethertheless the Platonic influence persisted. The second influence is the modern scientific-technological project to force nature to submit to humanities purposes which emerges in the early modern period (e.g Francis Bacon) and gathered pace in the nineteenth century. By contrast the bible’s narrative stresses our mutuality with nature, not domination, and especially not the idea of emancipation from nature. Hence the past interpretations are erroneous and we must work to protect the natural world; and here I would point to people like Sir John Houghton who was co-chair of the IPCC and works to raise awareness of climate change.
“Why is a book supposedly written by God so easy to misinterpret?”
Because none of it was written by God. Why does everyone seem to think the Bible is the Quran?. Secondly most great works are open to differing interpretations; we often see only what we want to see. Hence the great debates that have taken place between differing interpretations of Marx or of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.