We have tried Belief (Intro & Part 1 and Part 2), Metaphor, and Narrative and have found nothing. The armchair exploration of these joints of nature have only reinforced the notion that there is only harmony between faith and reason. But before torturing, burning, shooting, and mutilating our philosophical armchair and moving on, we have one last domain to address: Knowledge.

Before getting right to the meat, however, I want to give a layman’s introduction to the work of the new reformed epistemology, best represented by Alvin Plantinga. I am most comfortable referring to Plantinga’s work only. Without Plantinga’s presence as a world class analytic philosopher in the 20th century, the contemporary philosophy classroom would have less patience for a conservative Christian point of view.  We would also be without the 20th century’s greatest effort to locate a philosophical harmony between faith and reason – capped off by Oxford’s 2000 edition of Warranted Christian Belief.  To the layman, the title might suggest an exploration of Belief, rather than Knowledge. However, in Plantinga’s game Warranted Christian Belief just is Knowledge. ‘Belief’ is the place holder and ‘Warranted’ is the war.

The backdrop to Plantinga’s argument is the traditional Justified True Belief model, a model that has been refined and rarified by countless too many analytic monkeys.  On this model, someone knows something if – and as any of the mathematical monkeys would say, only if - they have a true belief that is rationally justified in the right sort of way. Knowledge IS (=) Justified True Belief. It helps to symbolize (obviously): K=JTB. Here is the idea: Someone might have a belief that turns out to be true, but unless this someone also owns justification for that belief, the belief will not amount to something we would call ‘knowledge’.   On this traditional model, justification comes about when a belief is rooted in the right sort of evidence in the right sort of way; the evidence comes – as it must – in the form of other beliefs, and so the model is inherently internalistic; this is an example of epistemic internalism.

One would think that humans would not be needed for this project; I suspect that a software program could have been designed for the generation of many of the published articles. But there are some interesting nuances: What this internalism means is that that which confers the status of knowledge to a true belief is that which is in principle something within the conscious grasp of the individual. Hence, the individual has the ability to sweep his own epistemic house, so to speak (as Chisholm once put it).  This is a matter of one having special access to that which gives a true belief the status of knowledge.  Special access is closely related to the general meaning of ‘justification’: someone can in principle justify his own beliefs. (I will take the liberty to note that this conception fits well with other illusions, such as freedom, control, inherent moral goodness or evil, and general, robust conscious awareness).

But internalism might not be true. There is the possibility that that which confers the status of knowledge to a true belief is not something the individual in principle has special access to. This would be the position called externalism. Externalism is therefore simply the denial of internalism. Alvin Plantinga is an externalist and therefore spends some of his time simply arguing against the thesis of internalism and spends some of his other time arguing for just what it is that does confer knowledge status to a true belief.  For Plantinga, knowledge is warranted true belief, or K=WTB.  (more…)

Similar to what we have already found regarding Metaphor, appreciation is growing for the importance of Narrative in our understanding of ourselves and the world. See for example: 

Herman, David (2002), Story Logic (University of Nebraska). MacIntyre, Alasdair (1981), After Virtue (University of Notre Dame Press). Mitchell, John (2005), ‘Evaluating Brady Error Using Narrative Theory: A Proposal For Reform’, Drake Law Review, 53, pp. 599-629. Pennington, Nancy & Hastie, Reid  (1992), ‘Explaining the Evidence: Tests of the Story Model For Jural Decision Making’.  Yamane, David (2000), ‘Narrative and Religious Experience’,  Sociology of Religion, 61:2, pp. 171-89. Crites, Stephen (1971), ‘The Narrative Quality of Experience’, From Journal of the American Academcy of Religion, XXXIX, 3.  In Why Narrative ?, Eds. Stanley Hauerwas and Gregory Jones. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997. Elkins, James (1985), ‘On the Emergence of Narrative Jurisprudence: The Humanistic Perspective Finds a New Path’, Legal Studies Forum, 2, pp. 123-56. Hauerwas, Stanley, and David B. Burrell (1977), ‘From System to Story: An Alternative Pattern for Rationality in Ethics’,  In Truthfulness and Tragedy: Further Investigations in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press).  Reddy, William (2001), ‘The Logic of Action: Indeterminacy, Emotion, and Historical Narrative’, History and Theory, Theme Issue, 40, pp. 10-33. Schick, Theodore (1982), ‘Can Fictional Literature Communicate Knowledge?’, Journal of Aesthetic Education, 16, pp. 31-39.

And I have been pleasantly surprised by Daniel Dennett’s conjecture that consciousness is the result of a pandemonium of competing, atomic narrative scripts (Consciousness Explained, 1991).

Consider investigative journalism and law: Narrative was perhaps the most important tool I had while making my discoveries about the Kirk.  Appeal to evidence and primary documents was foundational, but a decisive verdict required months of narrative development and interpretation. This importance of narrative in adjudicating the truth of a claim and compelling appropriate belief is summed up well by the US Supreme Court majority opinion:

The ‘fair and legitimate weight’ of conventional evidence showing individual  thoughts and acts amounting to a crime reflects the fact that making a case with testimony and tangible things not only satisfies the formal definition of an offense, but tells a colorful story with descriptive richness.  Unlike an abstract premise, whose force depends on going precisely to a particular step in a course of reasoning, a piece of evidence may address any number of separate elements, striking hard just because it shows so much at once…Evidence that has force beyond any linear scheme of reasoning, and as its pieces come together a narrative gains momentum, with power not only to support conclusions but to sustain the willingness of jurors to draw the inferences, whatever they may be, necessary to reach an honest verdict…  (Old Chief v. United States; my emphasis).

The moral significance of individual thoughts and actions requires more than an inductive view of relevant evidence; it requires a narrative structure. The practice of law and judicial decision has provided fertile ground for theorizing about narrative

(I have not yet seen the debate between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens, but I know who employed the right tools and who didn’t.  I am not surprised by the analytic yahoos declaring Hitchens’ defeat).  

But narrative has also been of interest in the field of axiology. In an essay discussing moral responsibility, free will, and Frankfurt cases, John Fischer (1999) cites David Velleman’s work on narrative (1991):  “later events are thought to alter the meaning of earlier events, thereby altering their contribution to the value of one’s life.”  (more…)

Note: I altered some of this entry after studying conceptual metaphor more this summer.

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In the hopes of locating a tension between faith and reason by means of armchair philosophy I first explored the subject of Belief. I found nothing to be of help – just the opposite. Now I turn to Metaphor.   

Appreciation has been growing for the metaphorical-like way we grasp one knowledge domain in terms of another very disparate knowledge domain; a corollary to this is the growing appreciation for what we are more familiar with: linguistic metaphor, such as ‘Juliet is the Sun’ or the first time someone said ‘take a hike’.

See for example:

Gibbs, Raymond (2006), ‘Metaphor Interpretation as Embodied Simulation’, Mind & Language, 21:3, pp. 434-58.  Sopory, Pradeep (2005), ‘Metaphor and Affect’, Poetics Today 26:3, pp. 433-58. Hogan, Patrick (2002), ‘A Minimal, Lexicalist/Constituent Transfer Account of Metaphor’,  Style, 36:3, pp. 484-502.  (2003a), The Mind and Its Stories. Cambridge University Press. (2003b), Cognitive Science, Literature, and the Arts: A Guide for Humanists (Routledge).   Johnson, Mark and George Lakoff (1999), Philosophy In The Flesh (Perseus Books Group). Ritchie, David (2003), ‘ARGUMENT IS WAR—Or is it a Game of Chess? Multiple Meanings in the Analysis of Implicit Metaphors’, Metaphor and Symbol, 18:2, pp. 125-46. (2004), ‘Common Ground in Metaphor Theory: Continuing the Conversation’, Metaphor and Symbol,  19:3, 233-44. Guttenplan, Samuel (2005), Objects of Metaphor (Oxford University Press).

Novel metaphor is ubiquitous in natural language, and in fact appears necessary for understanding objects of science and our own unconscious mind. This is in part because metaphor allows us to understand something ‘not seen’ according to a domain we have a good deal of experiential knowledge of. More generally, though, this just seems to be a basic way in which our mind ‘maps’ any new domain of experience onto existing domains of knowledge.  To make a metaphor out of linguistic ‘metaphor’, we could say that at root we know the world and ourselves metaphorically.

Metaphor is the predominate language of religion – once thought a liability, this fact may now be considered a strength. Just as the non-Christian and Christian know that in the same way – a fact well conceded by Plantinga’s popular conceptual analysis – the non-Christian and Christian also know metaphorically in the same way. There is no distinction in cognitive understanding between grasping the sage’s claim that ‘God is a rock’ and the philosopher’s claim that the unconscious mind locates, tracks, and identifies objects. 

Something further follows: Sage, philosopher, and scientist are all free to engage in a form of understanding that does not permit matter of fact yes or no answers.  Metaphor is not the sort of thing that is precisely true or false, but rather more or less apt; (more…)

COLLISION – 13 min VIMEO Exclusive Sneak Peak from Collision Movie on Vimeo.

This is apparently just the first 13 minutes of the soon to be released movie. Here is a transcript of an important section from about the five to seven minute mark:

Hitchens: I am impressed with Douglas for this reason: very often when I debate with religious Jews, Christians, and Muslims, what they are trying to do is say, look, our morality is the same. So we agree on what is or is not moral. Its just we disagree about where it comes from. No, he understands very well: It is the will of God that is involved. 

 

Wilson: I am a Christian. I take it on faith. I believe that faith provides me with the basis for rationality and I believe that my faith in God and his Word and his Christ provides me with an objective basis for moral considerations, moral values.

 

Hitchens: Pastor Wilson doesn’t make it easy on himself in that way.  He imposes on himself and on others an unbelievably strenuous burden of worry and guilt. . . .

 

Wilson: People say look, are you a fundamentalist? Do you take the bible literally? The answer is no.  But I believe it absolutely. This is a collection of 66 books written over centuries – many different genres, many different authors. And I believe it is our responsibility to study it, understand it, and understand what genre a particular book of the bible is.  Is this history? Yes or no.  Is this poetry? Yes or no.  Is this prophetic enunciation? Is this epistolary? What is it? And then I believe it and accept it that way, on its own terms.

 

Hitchens: Whether the argument is celestial, or original [concerning the creation or earliest stage], social or political – any of these dimensions – it puts him and me, despite our good personal relations, on a side apart, divided from one another.  There’s no bridge that can suffice. One of us not just has to lose the argument but has to admit real moral defeat.  I think it should be him.

This last statement is worth repeating: One of us not just has to lose the argument but has to admit real moral defeat.  I think it should be him.

I argue for the inherent immorality of Wilson’s moral argument for the existence of God in The Moral Argument, Part 4 .  

Dr. Peter Leithart is the Cambridge trained theologian of the Kirk, operating ‘out of bounds’ as a PCA minister. Leithart now heads the New St. Andrew’s College’s new graduate program after performing for years as a foundational faculty member. I had mentored with Leithart the year or so previous to the launch of Pooh’s Think, Part 1, and he was a friend. He had always been kind to me and in fact is the only ‘Kirker’ who ever showed a sincere desire to listen to me once Father Wilson included me among his local enemies. Leithart even set up meetings between Wilson and myself that he moderated, after explaining he was sympathetic “to both sides.” During the meetings, he was quick to interrupt Wilson but he always allowed me to speak my mind.  Leithart offered no protest even when I offered Wilson some ferocious interrogating questioning over the ‘Letter without Signatures,’ which was an important embarrassment of the Kirk’s just after she began her bullying of me.  This was truly, on one level, the tyrant having to submit to a balance of power in order for the dissenting, minority voice of the weak to get a hearing.

Today I recalled something I learned about the working of my unconscious mind just after the launch of Pooh’s Think, Part 1, and I owe this revelation to Leithart. Informal coffee at a local shop was Leithart’s traditional preference for meetings, but his first approach to this post-poohsthink era was marked by a greeter degree of formality than was custom. I met Leithart in his office at New St. Andrew’s College and not too far along into the meeting it became evident to me that he was offering a mild form of gracious interrogation. He was to ask me questions, and I was to answer. He asked me a question about homosexuality and emergent theology. Perhaps not fully satisfied by my answer, he followed up by asking if homosexuality is “wrong.”  “Yes,” I answered. I had been defending emergent Brian McLaren and others from libelous, irrational attacks from the Kirk – all generated by anti-homosexual rhetoric – and so I suppose there was a suspicion I had become a bit ‘squishy’ on the issue.

I remember how odd it was to sit there in this environment and feel no emotion of any kind.  I self-monitored my level of agitation and heart rate.  I was more than calm. I was about ready to fall asleep by a combination of boredom and exhaustion (the blasts, clinched fists, and shrieks of the new blog war could not be heard from Leithart’s monastic chamber).  I really did not know why I was even there meeting with Leithart. I did not care what I was asked and had no rhetorical purpose.  I was happy to answer any question in perfect sincerity and truth.  I had nothing to hide and I felt not the slightest bit of defensiveness as I sat there, half-numb, answering the questions.

The questioning led to me talking a bit.  I was talking about Wilson’s war against the community – I had already conceptualized it as precisely that.  I mentioned my concern about how we were treating our local neighbors and noted it was the opposite of Jesus’ ministry.  But just then I began to cry.  Crying turned into a bit of ginger weeping and I could not stop.  Leithart kindly got up and closed the blinds, hiding me from the public side-walk just outside his large window. 

I was not necessarily in doubt of what the main driving force was during those early days of dissent, but I was also skeptical of what underlying motives might have been lurking in the background.  The stark change in emotional reaction during this meeting with Leithart confirmed that at least a significant motivation was one that I was willing to defend as self-justifying in the face of any coming retaliatory abuse.  This was a helpful probe into the workings of my unconscious mind, and as startled as I was by the probe’s effect, it was not difficult to considered it just that on the spot. I did not enjoy breaking down in tears in front of Leithart over what seemed to be almost nothing, but the violent change of emotions over this singular issue was enough to confirm I had some of the right kind of fuel to propel me into what was coming (I would not have dared guess at that time I would have what it took to propel all the way through it and remain alive).

The occasion of this remembrance was a speech I read today for the second time  by Nathan Phelps (my thanks to Edward Babinski  for the notification).  Phelps grew up under the authority of a man, his father Fred Phelps, who has become internationally famous for following out certain implications of his reformed Baptist convictions. With an ever expanding gospel vision, Fred Phelps’ GodHatesFags.com  has blossomed into GodHatestheWorld.com  The striving  of Fred Phelps against his own local community, as described in this speech by Nathan Phelps, in many respects reminds me of Wilson’s war against, Moscow, his own small town in north Idaho.  (it is, by the way, pronounced ‘Mos-coe’ not ‘Mos-cow’).

The abuse Nathan Phelps saw as a young child within his own household – against him, his siblings, and his mother – is certainly nothing I have ever experienced, yet there are many astounding similarities in our two narratives.  Please read Phelp’s speech,  which offers a moving narrative of not only his childhood, but the long intellectual battle that was to follow PTSD and his confusing encounters with the ecumenical evangelical world years after running away from home, getting married, and having two children. Here is some of what Phelps said towards the end of his speech that I find of particular interest:

At night I worried and fretted.  Sleepless, anxious hours passed as I played violent confrontations with my father over and over in my mind. . .

 

Exposure to mainstream Christianity was creating conflicts and raising questions that sent me in search of answers.  I found a counselor with a theological as well as psychiatric degree, and spent 9 months working with him.  (more…)

This entry is a continuation of the last post Faith vs. Reason, Part 1.  These two entries come as a pair.

Dispositionalism

Again, dispositionalism is the view (Schwitzgebel’s proposal in any case) that a belief just is the right sort of cluster of stereotypical dispositions – behavioral, cognitive, and phenomenal (‘behavioral’ includes the disposition to verbally affirm the belief “that P”). However, on my interpretation of the dispositionalist theory, a mild incoherence is forced since our conception of the stereotypical dispositions is dependant on referencing the belief in standard linguistic form: the “belief that P”. 

The grammar evidences this.  While the theory holds that the stereotypical dispositions just are the belief, the theorist is left asking if this or that disposition is stereotypical “of the belief” in question. But the cluster of stereotypical dispositions cannot be the belief and at the same time be of the belief, since ‘of’ locates behavior that we expect to follow from the belief “that P.” These expectations result from our innate sense of practical rationality, not from what we take a given belief to be. Otherwise, so I claim, we have no way of deciphering whether a disposition was a genuine deviation from the stereotypical dispositions of a given belief. And so it seems we are stuck pointing to the linguistic “belief that P” as a necessary reference point before we can begin any discussion of  the theoretical “belief” that just is the stereotypical dispositions.

This, I think, is the only way to understand Schwitzgebel’s statement:

Does Ellen believe that all Spanish nouns ending in ‘a’ are feminine? Some of her dispositions accord with that belief. (260)

Are some of Ellen’s dispositions just “that belief,” or are they the sort that “accord with that belief”? In Schwitzbegel’s story, Ellen thinks that the proposition “all Spanish nouns ending in ‘a’ are feminine” is true. But her behavior suggests that she does not take this as true, since she speaks Spanish well, which includes the use of non-feminine nouns ending in ‘a’. “that belief” is identified with Ellen’s taking the world made true by “all Spanish nouns ending in ‘a’ are feminine” as the actual world; the dispositions either accord or don’t accord with that belief. 

Here Schwitzgebel makes the linguistic statement, “the belief that P,” the standard, which only seems right to me. There has to be a linguist anchor. Otherwise we are just talking about behavior and not belief behavior. We are especially cut off from belief behavior when we reference merely the skill of a language user. If Ellen can speak her native language fluently while having very little ability to verbally express beliefs about that language – such as grammar rules – then we should think that Ellen’s knowing how to speak a language does not require, in principle, beliefs about that language to begin with.  I would want to argue, for instance, that Ellen does not give evidence to any belief whatsoever when she expresses her ability to speak Spanish well. The only relevant belief we know she does have is a false one. What we mean by ‘belief’ must therefore be something other or at least something more than dispositions.

My Proposal

On my view, believing in its most primitive form cannot be separated from believing that. (Hebraic belief/faith, which is not tied as directly to statements of fact, is what I take to be a higher level, less primitive form of commitment).   Belief ascription is short hand to describe our behavioral dispositions and to describe the behavioral dispositions of others; it is a simplifying reduction rooted in language. (more…)

I have wrestled with the relationship between Faith and Reason ever since my senior year in high school when I was reconverted to conservative, evangelical Christianity (it is possible that I was just extra-converted, a dilemma I am happy to now leave to the theologians). Over the last seventeen years, the battle to hold faith and reason together made for a painful journey over a number of terrains – geographical, institutional, psychological, political, and intellectual. The intellectual journey is for the most part complete, now that I have finally found some genuine cognitive rest. I am not the first to land on the resting place I have found, but I do believe my struggle has produced some ways of looking at the relationship between faith and reason that just may allow a small contribution to this subject’s evolution.

I wish to guide you, the reader, to this same resting place – once we are there, you can decide for yourself if it is a place you can inhabit for good. But there are some less than pleasant waters to tread on the way. In order to begin wading into this deep and murky swamp, I will turn first to what philosophy proper might be able to say about the relationship between faith and reason, or more precisely, about the alleged tension between them. In particular, I will address four philosophical topics: Metaphor, Narrative, Knowledge, and Belief.  I will argue that each reveals the unlikelihood of locating a distinction between faith and reason given a strictly philosophical armchair methodology. If an important distinction cannot be found, then neither can a philosophical tension.

The skeptic is usually a good place to begin a dialectic, and so we should tune our ears to the voice of the unbeliever:  Faith calls us to dispense with verifiable facts and empirical investigation so that we may cling to the mythological stories, fables, parables, and metaphors that boast to connect us with the otherwise mysterious, eternal unknown.  Faith thereby remains an epistemological stance that demands the flouting of our most basic intellectual duties. This is not a faith in harmony with reason. This is a faith at war with reason.

Fair enough. But is this worry at all grounded in sound philosophical enquiry? Can philosophical inquiry lead us to these conclusions?  Can philosophical enquiry at least help justify these conclusions?

The first part of this Faith vs. Reason series is my attempt to demonstrate my answers to these questions, and my answers are no and no and no. This worry is not at all grounded in sound philosophical enquiry; philosophical inquiry will not lead us to these conclusions; and philosophical enquiry does not offer justification to these conclusions. In sum, it is impossible to locate a tension between faith and reason with the tools of armchair philosophy.

In this entry I begin to address the subject of Belief.

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Knowledge of fact itself is a bit more complicated than traditional discussions in theology and Plantingian philosophy suggest. I doubt that propositional knowledge – if we must even reference such a technical concept – is a matter of just believing a proposition that ends up being true in the right sort of way – justification, warrant, or whatever. Eric Schwitzgebel, for instance, suggests that knowing that is a capacity whereas belief is a tendency (‘Acting Contrary to Our Professed Beliefs’).  But for simplicity, I will here assume that there is a sufficiently tight relationship between propositional knowledge and believing propositions. Considering the current cultural landscape, this seems an innocent move to make: (more…)

The kind lady at the local Christian bookstore has been poised with my cell phone number in hand for a few days now, knowing my determination to somehow find an April issue of Christianity Today somewhere in San Diego. “Is there someone you know in this issue?” she asked. “Yes, there is.” Molly Worthen now has a seven page article on my old teacher, titled “The Controversialist.”

I received the call Friday afternoon. A pleasant sense of accomplishment came over me once the magazine was physically in my hands.  A trip to Borders Books and Barnes and Noble had already turned out dry; neither of the local stores still carry Christianity Today. Although, I did accidentally see the name ‘Christopher Hitchens’ while browsing the magazine stands. Hitchens has decided to write a letter to the president of the United States – no more arrogant than arguing with God I suppose. The same was true for the local libraries: no Christianity Today and plenty of Hitchens. The small local library here in Cardiff By The Sea has likely never carried Christianity Today. Yet, the last time I stopped in, someone had thrown the most recent issue of Vanity Fair on top of the displayed weekend newspaper.

I went down to the Seaside Market to get a 6 pack of Heineken after writing the rough draft of this entry and once again had the experience. I found the latest issue of Vanity Fair staring at me at the checkout stand. Heineken is more difficult to locate at a grocery store than Christopher Hitchens. And this was only out of four magazines: three magazines of hot women and one with half naked men wearing barrels. It was the barrels that grabbed my attention. Perhaps Hitchens is becoming, unknowingly, the Big Brother he despises – he is everywhere, and he lets us all know what he thinks we ought to think.  

After this journey in search for April’s issue, there is little question in my mind why Worthen opens her piece with a paragraph extolling the accomplishments and status of, not Douglas Wilson, but my Big Brother Hitchens.  In reality, I do not recall knowing of the man before the Kirk came up with her latest marketing idea. Once again, I owe a good deal to my teacher Douglas Wilson. Another four books by Hitchens are on their way.

Before getting to the obvious task at hand, I wish to first seek some patience from the reader.  I keep saying that Pooh’s Think, Part 2, is not “about Douglas Wilson,” only to then continue writing about Douglas Wilson.  And it will not end here.  Not only is my analysis of Wilson’s debate (Canon Press) with Hitchens incomplete, I also have the two hour discussion between Hitchens and the four-and-a-half apologists at the Christian Book Expo to address – and boy was that something.  And now here is Molly Worthen once again writing about my beloved Kirk: “Wilson is becoming someone who even those minding their own business in the noncontroversial ‘mainstream’ cannot afford to ignore.” If other scholars would stop writing articles about Wilson or giving Wilson the stage lights of ‘debate,’ I could get further along with my book and write posts on something else.  As it is, I ask you to bear with me just a little bit longer. 

But I am starting to wonder if my promise to say off topic was a bit premature.  After all, if I was the only expert on the European Green Crab, would anyone object to my authoring a site dedicated to that species? I would think that my task would produce additional justification; the species of my expertise has been almost extinct the last 400 years.

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Molly Worthen is once again to be commended for her judicious reporting on the Kirk.  Her first task, in 2006, was a piece for the New York Times Magazine, “Onward Christian Soldiers.”    She touched briefly on Douglas Wilson, of all appearances a “lumber jack,” but that was not the focus of her thesis. The Christian soldiers were the students, fellows, and doctors of New St. Andrews College.  In this latest, the topic just is Douglas Wilson, the controversialist. I recommend reading the article, and not just my response below. I will post a link to the article here as soon as one is available. (more…)

In continuation of my analysis of the debate between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson, I argue that Wilson has adopted an attitude towards morality that is immoral.

Wilson makes clear in his introductory remarks that empathy and emotion play no role in grounding morality:  “If there is no God, then who cares?”  Without divine authority revealing some law-code on the matter, Wilson delights in the stoic detachment and unconcern he is sure he would offer in response to human suffering.  

This is at least the argument. The lack of a conceptual role for empathy and emotion in Wilson’s rhetorical agenda does not entail that Wilson in fact possesses no empathy or emotion. Although, one still has to wonder by the end of the debate. Can an intelligent person, whose own morality is firmly rooted in empathy and emotion, consistently and honestly state that empathy and emotion provide no grounds for human morality? I doubt this is possible, but even if it is, I am morally certain that this remains at least unlikely on a case by case basis. So we should have prima facie warrant for a small amount of suspicion.

I commented a couple years ago on Wilson’s review of Sam Harris’ book, Letter to a Christian Nation, and noted this same stance from Wilson. After a while, and after reaching the peak of my retaliatory endeavors in Moscow, I expressed my perplexity by posing the argumentative question: “Is Douglas Wilson a Psychopath?” I do admit that there was an element of literal inquiry involved in the asking as I considered the altogether separate evidence of Wilson’s violence towards me and the many other sheep that have been beaten by his sociological rod.   But now that I have read this debate, I want to ask a less offensive question.

Is Douglas Wilson a sociopath? There is a sense in which his moral argument suggests so, and I doubt I am the only reviewer of this debate to have the suspicion (I know for a fact I am not the only person who has strongly entertained the idea generally, based on other evidence).

Hitchens argues that many of the teachings of Christianity are immoral. But consistent with Wilson’s opening sentiments, Wilson just does not seem to care. At every step, Wilson remains silent on just this point. Hitchens puts empathy right on the table in each round and Wilson will not touch it. Hitchens questions the morality of the eternal torture of the dead, but Wilson changes the subject, refocusing attention on the sacredness of the Old Testament and bypassing the problem of hell altogether – a doctrine he is not shy in promulgating from his own pulpit. Even while defending the sacredness of the Old Testament, Wilson does not address any of the alleged atrocities Hitchens claims the Old Testament recommends. Rather, Wilson just says that Hitchens has no reason himself to give a damn about human suffering. If there is no God, everything is matter and motion and so “who cares? ‘On with the rapine and slaughter!’” (more…)

My summary of the debate between Wilson and Hitchens (Canon Press) can be found here.  My analysis follows in four parts, beginning with this entry. Here is the map of what is to come:

1) Part 3 – Ethical Information:  The question over humanity’s access to “ethical information” jeopardizes the continuation of the debate beyond round two. Upon analysis, it appears the debate was over in round two.

2) Part 4 – Immoral Defense:  This debate is not just about morality, but also the expression of morality, the morality of Hitchens and Wilson. This moral expression has revealed a good deal of immorality, and oddly enough, Hitchens, the atheist, is not the one responsible. (He didn’t even say “fucking” at just the right Hitch moment.) I want to address the immorality of Wilson’s moral stance. If Wilson’s defense of Christian morality is itself immoral, then it is self-refuting.

3) Part 5 – Strenuous Conditions:  I want to take a close look at Wilson’s various challenges and questions. On analysis, it appears Wilson offers not one challenge, but five. Wilson demands that Hitchens provide the following:

a) A warrant, or rational warrant, or justification for his moral beliefs.  b) Definitions for ethical terms.  c) A standard for moral evaluation.  d) An account, without reference to a theistic metaphysic, of language, meaning, concepts, reason, truth, and the process of argumentation.  e) A source of moral authority that should be obeyed.

I will seek to explain how, as Hitchens put it, all these “strenuous conditions are surplus to requirements.”

4) Part 6 – Moral Philosophy:  Hitchens progressively revealed his own moral philosophy throughout the debate, whereas Wilson never stopped insisting that Hitchens was simply refusing to address Wilson’s challenges. Hitchens’ own view on morality deserves an analysis before investigating whether Hitchens did or did not offer a sufficient answer to Wilson.

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1) Ethical Information

Is Christianity Good for the World? Hitchens answers: One reason Christianity is not Good for the world is that Christianity is not an origin of moral precepts; and if not an origin of moral precepts, then an unlikely candidate for an origin of moral goodness, much less the fount of moral goodness; and if this is so, it would seem hard to appreciate how Christianity is good for the world in any immediate and practical sense. This is not an unimportant consideration. The church’s cultural boasting remains unhampered by her continued multiplication of moral atrocities and absurdities. How is this if she does not at the very least bring us the standard by which to judge her hypocrisy?

This was Wilson’s chance to start the debate strong. But in his eagerness to lecture this intimidating foe, Wilson starts off a little too strong. (more…)

Taking a fatalistic view that was at odds with his ostensibly cheery humanism, he used to say that “if you look in playgrounds, you see the little judge and the little burglar and the little murderer and the little banker.” He tried and failed to derive consolation from religion, and once had the following exchange with Cardinal Basil Hume: Hume pontificated to him that, were there to be no God, human life would be absurd. “Well, exactly” was Mortimer’s rejoinder. (Mortimer Rests His Case)

Canon Press recently took aboard a short debate between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson. The resulting small book is titled “Is Christianity Good for the World?”  If the reader is uncertain as to how the two authors are inclined to answer this question, I suggest a preliminary perusal of the respective links.  (I just switched Wilson’s link from wikipedia to his NSA page as an act of fairness, and  just discovered in the new link a picture of someone wearing a gray sweater that looks a lot like the one I am currently wearing.  I’ll go turn around and look in the mirror. Yep, that’s a picture of me. Notice that I am the one paying attention – further proof of my loyal Kirkship.)

My interest in this debate is two-fold. First, I believe this debate sheds further light on the work, life, and psychology of fundamentalism’s most intriguing American leader, Douglas Wilson, as well as the beautiful world he brought forth from the dust of the earth, which I like to call – as did Wilson not long ago – the Kirk. Second, Christopher Hitchens’ reputation as one of our most important public intellectuals is further supported by the invigorating and challenging prose he provides during the course of this debate – which can be seen as a practical extension of his new book god is not Great. I will reserve my worries about god is not Great for a future entry, and for now just admit that the book is, it seems to me, one of the finest ever written. It is therefore a pleasure for me to analyze the collision of the two lives and the two positions that went into the making of this debate.  

Due to Wilson’s insistent neo-presuppositionalist method (as the theowonks who hold the keys to the reformed tradition might want to call it), the argumentative course rarely veers too far from what I call the Moral Argument.  The Moral Argument is based on the theist claim that morality is inescapable, while also, apart from a theistic metaphysic, inexplicable. Another way of stating it – if one would opt for oversimplification – is that if God does not exist, there is no right or wrong or good or evil.

The importance of the Moral Argument itself cannot be overstated. The debate between Christianity and atheism is in a politically strategic position. We continue to see the ramifications of fundamentalist religion throughout the world, and on the subjects of divine authority and holy writ, America now stands as the most ambivalent sovereign. The debate among Americans over theism is therefore one of the most important debates the world currently knows. The American fundamentalist now enjoys the responsibility for halting the encroaching skepticism of cosmopolitan society, not just in America, but by extension and global influence, throughout the world. And the Moral Argument is perhaps one of the theist’s most important argumentative and rhetorical tools by which to accomplish this.

In this entry (Part 2) I provide a summary of the debate between Hitchens and Wilson. In part 1 of this series I explored one of Colin Turnbull’s anthropological narratives of the Ik people in order to wrestle with what it means to say morality is ‘innate.’  In Part 3, forthcoming, I will begin my analysis of the debate.  

Some of my readers might be a bit disappointed by Wilson’s literary and philosophical performance as displayed in the summary below. So I will seek to first show just how capable the Moral Argument is to stir and perplex. To accomplish this, I allow C.S. Lewis a brief moment to make the case.  It turns out, the Moral Argument can be offered with at least a small dose of empathy and cogency. 

C.S. Lewis’ chapter on animal pain, found in his book The Problem of Pain (1962), led to ‘The Inquiry’ of C.E.M. Joad, the head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of London.  The problem Lewis and Joad were considering is often understood to be ‘The’ problem for theism: the Problem of Evil.  Lewis and Joad tackle the Problem of Evil by way of a sub-question: how can an all powerful and all good God cause so much pain (‘evil’) in the non-sinful animal kingdom? Lewis concludes his reply to Dr. Joad’s inquiry with the Moral Argument:

I know that there are moments when the incessant continuity and desperate helplessness of what at least seems to be animal suffering make every argument for theism sound hollow, and when (in particular) the insect world appears to be Hell itself visibly in operation around us.  Then the old indignation, the old pity arises.  But how strangely ambivalent this experience is: I need not expound the ambivalence at much length, for I think I have done so elsewhere and I am sure that Dr Joad had long discerned it for himself.  If I regard this pity and indignation simply as subjective experiences of my own with no validity beyond their strength at the moment (which next moment will change), I can hardly use them as standards whereby to arraign the creation.  On the contrary, they become strong as arguments against God just in so far as I take them to be transcendent illumination to which creation must conform or be condemned. They are arguments against God only if they are themselves the voice of God.  The more Shelleyan, the more Promethean my revolt, the more surely it claims a divine sanction.  That the mere contingent Joad or Lewis, born in an area of secure and liberal civilization and imbibing from it certain humanitarian sentiments, should happen to be offended by suffering – what is that to the purpose? How will one base an argument for or against God on such an historical accident! (more…)