Two things
(1) The Notre Dame Conference on “the character of the God of the Hebrew Bible” can be watched online. That’s pretty neat.
(2) Atheist James Wood wrote an interesting article in the August edition of The New Yorker. Unfortunately only an abstract can be read online without a subscription. Basically he compares the “New Atheism” with Terry Eagleton and his recent book. Wood’s basic thesis is that while Dawkins et al are indeed guilty of attacking a straw man, Eagleton and other academic defenders are guilty of defending a straw man. Woods says that the sterile, abstracted, impersonal god of Eagleton is just as remote from the realities of religious life as Dawkins’ caricatures. I found the article stimulating and refreshing.
Terry Eagleton
However, I expect that many religious believers in academia will be open to a similar criticism – that they believe in a kind of intellectualized god that no one else believes in, or even understands. Referring to my first link above, even watching a Notre Dame conference on the Hebrew Bible reveals that many Christian academics quasi-secretly hold beliefs that the “average believer” is likely to find radical, heretical, or incomprehensible. I’m not sure how I feel about this. In virtually all other areas of human interest, it’s considered normal and even desirable that scholars and academics will have a more “sophisticated” understanding of their subject than laypeople. For example, when I talk about the weather, or outer space, or the economy, I undoubtedly have many simplistic, maybe even “childish” notions. This doesn’t mean I’m stupid, or even that my beliefs aren’t basically correct or rational. But they are not as clear, developed, or rigorous as a specialist’s. Yet when the academic topic is something like “the nature of God,” “the rationality of religious belief,” or “how we should read the Bible,” there seems to be something offensive or improper about this difference between academics and laypeople.
Perhaps some would say that God’s nature, or the Bible’s nature, or the nature of faith, is not open to inquiry, or that no one can be an expert in them, for some reason. That seems stupid to me, but maybe someone can defend it in the comments. But if it really is stupid, then we should expect people like Eagleton and other academics to have at least somewhat alien understandings of faith, compared to the wider religious world.
Of course there are plenty of academics whose thinking has much more affinity with the common religious life. Compare C.S. Lewis and Terry Eagleton, Karl Barth and Paul Tillich, or Alvin Plantinga and Charles Hartshorne. Perhaps theology, philosophy of religion, and related subjects are partially responsible for accommodating common religious discourse, just as ethics is generally thought to be responsible for common moral discourse. If an ethical theory can’t accommodate how we ordinarily use moral language, it is suspect. I could see the same being true with concepts of God.
I’m interested in the ideas you engage here, but I’m having some trouble understanding exactly who you are talking about. When you say “Christian academics,” are your referring to Christians within academia, generally? Or are you referring more specifically to academics who study Christianity and/or religion and/or philosophy? It seems like the former in the middle of your post, but the latter by the end. However, what you mean by “academics” seems important to me in determining how much of a problem this is and where the problem lies.
“…that they believe in a kind of intellectualized god that no one else believes in, or even understands.”
Josh, by “intellectualized god” do you mean to make an immpression of “deistic god” who is probably compatible with contemporary scientific consesus about the Origin of the Universe and Life?
Yes, I know that this form of god is most likely to appeal to the academical Christians, who may find that some biblical stories to be at odd with their intellectual mind set-up.
However, on my part, I find it rather to be of insensitive character for a certain academician to only have a faith in Deism but fail to make a small step further to trust in God of Abraham, Moses or Jesus!
It is because of the fact that there are overwhelming evidences in favor of Biblical God and given the fact that it is for our own benefit that we trust God as our God, I find it to be utterly irresponsible of anyone to shun Biblical God. C.S. Lewis and the likes knew better!
You see, it really baffles me when I read about a good number of Atheists in the internet who claim to have broke the yoke of Christian religiosity and that they are freer now. It amazes me and all I say is it is pseudo-freedom and it will only be a matter of time before they realize it, and if they don’t, I take it that insanity has won over sanity and darkness won over light.
Lisa,
I was probably imagining academics specifically with philosophy, theology, and religion as their areas of specialization. However, I think Christian academics in general will tend to have beliefs that some might find alienating.
But there are (I assume) so many exceptions, that the usefulness of these claims are suspect!
Edson,
I don’t mean a deistic conception of god, although from what I understand, many theists in the natural sciences tend toward this concept, or a pantheistic concept.
I just mean various esoteric concepts of God, like the “ground of being” of some theologies. That’s a relatively simple example, and still it drifts away from common discourse.
Referring to the tangent that makes up most of your comment, I don’t think it is useful or wise to keep posting this triumphalist rhetoric about the “overwhelming” evidence of what you believe, and the “insanity” and “darkness” of atheism, and so on. Triumphalist attitudes won’t convince anyone of anything.
(In fact I don’t think you’re telling the truth – I don’t think it “baffles” you why atheists think what they think. It’s very easy to understand why they think what they think, just like it’s easy to understand why we think what we think)
Thank you for the clarification. I’ll refrain from speaking further on topics I don’t know much about.
Josh, you don’t believe I am telling the truth?
You have to believe me. Frankly speaking, to reject Jesus in favor of Atheism is kinda of eating your own excrement. That’s what I believe.
Someone cannot be a sane one to reject Jesus in favor of a false, weak and hopeless philosophy as Atheism.
And I don’t mean to convince anyone by telling this. It is not easy to understand what atheists think. In a nut shell, they think there is no God and even if there is, he is useless. I intreprete it this way: God is was so stupid to give me this life and I hate to live as much as I hate God. What is this if not insanity?
Okay, they reject Jesus that all his philosophies of love, forgiveness and hope of life in him are hogwash. What is this if not insanity?
And if you believe that to convince an atheist you must bring hm flowers and apples and tell him “you know it’s okay to reject Jesus and be an atheist because you see, it is a reasonable lifestyle”, you are mistaken.
An atheist who has rejected Jesus needs to be looked at with a pity eye. The guy is being lost and it is truly a catastrophe.
To solace with Atheist mindset is to be unhelpful tantamount to meet 5 year old kid running away from his father and still encouranging the kid to do so.
And by the way, apparently, you don’t believe there are overwhelming evidences in favor of belief in God.
I assume you take it to mean that there are some evidences but it is reasonable for an atheist to reject these evidences as insufficient.
It isn’t reasonable. It is being irresponsible and undisciplined.
You cannot have someone fervently and zealously trusting that there was something called “primordial soup” that gave rise to simple and complex life on this Earth through evolution, of which no single eye testimony to this phenomenon, yet you have the same person denying fervently and zealously that Jesus Christ did not exist nor was he resurrected, of which there are dozens of people testifying to have seen the phenomenon with their own eyes. This person is not a disciplined one. He is neither a responsible one.
Solacing with this sort of Atheism is equally being irresponsible. I know there are various sorts of Atheism. There is something as honest Atheism, in which an adherent isn’t even conscious of it. He believes what he has been taught to believe since he was born. Now that is a different case.
Specifically, I am dealing with the Atheism of the sort of Dawkins, Hitchens and rejectors of religions in favor of Atheism. These, must have had time to think about the issues with Religions for sometimes before making a decision to be Atheists.
They thought about it, critically, and they resolved, there is no God. To these, I say, they are being irresponsible to reach that conclusion.
It is very easy to understand what atheists think. Many of them write books, for example. Go read them.
If it makes you feel better to condescend and insult, fine. But please go do it somewhere else. Here I’d rather talk about real topics.
I don’t believe you. Nothing you have said remotely resembles what any of these authors think, or argue in their books.
Nope.
Yep.
I can’t even follow the argument, let alone the grammar, of this paragraph. This combined with your confidence is obnoxious. Please go comment somewhere else, or make your own blog or something. Nobody “trusts” some statement about “primordial soup” and so on. What are you talking about? Recently there have been several excellent books graciously explaining the theory of evolution to those who are 150 years behind. Try reading Kenneth Miller’s book Only a Theory. Anyway virtually no one denies the existence of Jesus, which reveals further that you have no grasp of atheists or their arguments. Also no one saw the resurrection, or claimed to.
I don’t like your comments. I find them distasteful, unintelligent, and distracting. Please go comment somewhere else, perhaps on some apologetics blog.
Actually you kind of remind me of John Loftus, just on the other side of things. Spend more time on his blog, perhaps.
It is sad that you have dismissed me. I respect your decision and bye!
Due to the nature of the Internet, you are obviously free to ignore my wishes.
I just wish you would contribute something other than (1) arrogant insults of all atheists and (2) repeated overconfident assertions without argument of the obvious truth of what you happen to believe.