Narrative, Logic, and Wishful Thinking in Theology

In a new book, with the possibly oxymoronic title of, "Analytic Theology: new Essays in the Philosophy of Theology," Eleonore Stump writes the following:

"To me, it seems that there are things to know which can be known through narrative but which cannot be known as well, if at all, through the methods of analytic philosophy."[1]

My worry here is that such a view is merely a contingent statement about the psychological assent of the individual, not about careful justification or reliable procedures for having trustworthy (even true) beliefs. A story adapted from the well-known 20th century philosopher, Bertrand Russell, is informative:

There is a small town with just one male barber; and that every man in the town keeps himself clean-shaven: some by shaving themselves, some by attending the barber. The barber, said to be a persnickety man, has a business rule whereby he shaves all and only those men in town who do not shave themselves. One day, a heavily bearded man, feeling the scratchy irritation that only a string of hot summer days can impute on such a fellow, decides to avail himself of this barber's services. As he's walking up to the shop, the thought strikes him, "Does the barber shave himself?" As he's reaching for shop's door handle, he further thinks, "Well, he does or he doesn't; that's for sure." Sadly, however, when he steps into the shop, he notes that the barber's not there. "Should I wait?" ponders the man, yet again scratching his neck.

Now people who love the narrative method for doing theology (or other religious-type thinking) would probably ask questions like, "Does this barber find meaning in having such a special commitment to whom he shaves?" Or, "Does this barber cheat members of the community by partitioning some from others as to whom he will allow into his business?" And, lots of other kinds of "deepity" fishings for Big Questions would, no doubt, also be asked.

Alas, the problem isn't that the story is just fictional, but that it's logically impossible that there is such a barber. (If the barber does not shave himself, he must abide by the rule and shave himself, but if he does shave himself, according to the rule he will not shave himself. Thus, such contradictions show our conceptual barber is nonsense.) So, what people who formulate such questions about this barber fall prey to is mere psychological assent, thinking they are asking meaningful questions. But there is no reference to the very concepts of their questions! They are fooled into asking about purely vacuous entities and events. Yet this is the very problem with much of what passes for standard theologizing. Many of the issues, even when not empirically defeasible, are simply vacuous. Sometimes theologizing fails by making scientifically false claims. Sometimes theologizing fails by making metaphorically hazy claims. But in these types of instances, theologizing would fail by making vacuous claims.

I once heard an aphorism which seems to be a corollary for this problem, at least for the traditional, dogma-based issues within theology. I'll paraphrase it as follows: "Just because a grammatically structured question can be formulated on some topic, doesn't mean there can be an answer to that question."

O.

REFERENCES

[image] william c hutton jr flickriver (Accessed Sept. 11, 2010)

[1] Oliver D. Crips, ed. "Analytic Theology: New Essays in the Philosophy of Theology" (Oxford Univ. Press, 2009), 255.

The (odd) faith of a paleontologist

{Podcast this essay} In matters of piety, how do scientists separate wishful thinking from careful thinking? I was recently in a seminar with a Christian scientist who was especially informed about paleontology. He was there to defend the proposition that Christian belief is not threatened by paleontology (as regarding what it tells us about evolution).

Thus guy was a real scientist with no detectibly "crazy views" about biology or the fossil record, as will sometimes be encountered in such people with conservative viewpoints on life and religion.

In one of his religiously reflective pieces (following his long book chapter discussing transition fossils), he claimed that the biological creation by God, along with its awe-inspiring past, evoked worshipful feelings in him. I asked him how how such wonderful creations like fish pox, small pox, ebola, aids, malaria, and tuberculoses managed to evoked such worshipful feelings towards God, especially seeing how these pre-date human beings.

His response was telling. He claimed that these where "natural evils" (i.e. not implemented by any moral agent, since there were none on the planet at that time) and that it is indeed mysterious just why such things are around. In his opinion, he believed that they might contribute moral lessons in our learning more about helping one another through suffering; moreover, they might also contribute to some unforeseen good known only to God, their creator.

I found this position problematic, and pointed out two issues to him. First, I noted that when someone dies suddenly of one of these microbiological diseases, there is no ability to learn any moral lesson for later life (since it was snuffed out), and perhaps there is no lesson to anyone else, seeing how they couldn't' prevent it, and since they probably didn't even understand it (as do we, though only very recently, as human history goes.) In fact, people often die alone by naturally destructive mechanisms, and nobody, much less the dead person, learns any moral lesson by such an event. I added that I could not see how, for example, a three-year-old being swallowed by a quickly exiting Anaconda (while the child was temporarily out of sight of the parents) was ultimately good or morally instructive for anyone. Second, I noted that even if such bio-nasties do contribute to some unforeseen good, it is just that -- "unforeseen". Therefore, if not outright counter-evidence, at the very least one should reserve judgment on whether their presence makes any sense, given certain other Judeo-Christian, theological commitments to God's creation being "good."

So what was his scientifically informed, carefully articulated position to this conundrum? "We just have faith and trust God."

While this pious response did strike me as wishful thinking, it certainly did not strike me as careful thinking.

Perhaps I can offer a more careful response, if not one so pious. It would seem that generic Christian dogmatists have confused an attribute of moral relationships between self-aware creatures -- namely, "good" -- with attributes of their aesthetic encounters with nature -- "beautiful". How fine for us that nature no longer threatens technologically advanced citizens in their day-to-day lives. (But it will get us all in the end.) How fine for us that we can study complexities of a small pox virus or an AIDS virus and discourse passionately on their "beauty" as efficient organisms. (They would think we are beautiful as well, much the way we might sit down and adore a fine holiday meal.)

And I have documentary suspicion too. I suspect that the writer in the Old Testament dubbed creation as "good" because s/he was sitting in healthy circumstances, fairly young; a person well-educated and otherwise highly placed among thousands of illiterates who had to scrape by in their meager, short suffering lives. He or she was probably at the time comfortable, not threatened by nature, and therefore fell into confusion about just how nasty common human existence could be. I'm sure the author was cured of all that quickly enough. But, at the time, it was pretty talk and easy to re-tell around campfires, so it stuck around, and became classical literature, as these things do.

Fortunately for the tradition, it has two, even better witnesses testifying against it: Job and Ecclesiastes.

O.