What, one wonders, are Dawkins’s views on the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? Has he read Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace or Moltmann on hope? Has he even heard of them? Or does he imagine like a bumptious young barrister that you can defeat the opposition while being complacently ignorant of its toughest case?
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The central doctrine of Christianity, then, is not that God is a bastard. It is, in the words of the late Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe, that if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you. Here, then, is your pie in the sky and opium of the people. It was, of course, Marx who coined that last phrase; but Marx, who in the same passage describes religion as the ‘heart of a heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions’, was rather more judicious and dialectical in his judgment on it than the lunging, flailing, mispunching Dawkins. Now it may well be that all this is no more plausible than the tooth fairy. Most reasoning people these days will see excellent grounds to reject it. But critics of the richest, most enduring form of popular culture in human history have a moral obligation to confront that case at its most persuasive, rather than grabbing themselves a victory on the cheap by savaging it as so much garbage and gobbledygook. The mainstream theology I have just outlined may well not be true; but anyone who holds it is in my view to be respected, whereas Dawkins considers that no religious belief, anytime or anywhere, is worthy of any respect whatsoever. This, one might note, is the opinion of a man deeply averse to dogmatism. Even moderate religious views, he insists, are to be ferociously contested, since they can always lead to fanaticism.
–-Terry Eagleton, on the God Delusion. (via conservativeradical)
Terry Eagleton poses a good question and gives us many great theological thinkers to pursue. His view that Dawkins has to understand them to pursue his approach to religion is off base. Richard Dawkins is concerned with the religion of the man in the pew. He is concerned with the faith of the average Church and church-attender. He is concerned with the faith of that good person who believes that the earth was created in 4004 B.C. (and that is Before Chirst in their world). Dawkins fears their ignorance. Dawkins fears their vote. So do I. These are the good folks of the Dover, Pennsylvania school board. The ones that lied and cheated their way into the science classrooms of that school and in doing so violated at least one of the Ten Commandments. That school board is a great danger to science education in America. There are hundreds like it in the nation.
I am left the wonder if the writer feels that all ministers should keep up on biology, that they all should read “Origin of the Species” ? That would be a great improvement. Most of them learned their biology in the ninth grade and by watching “Inherit the Wind”. Biology has moved so far since 1925 and the Scopes Monkey Trial. Many a minister will still say that he isn’t descended from a monkey. If such a person understands evolution in that way, he isn’t educated enough to comment on the question.
Both sides of this question need more knowledge of the best arguments of their opposition, but defeating the Dover school board doesn’t require knowledge of modern theology. Much of that theology would cost a minister his position in many churches. Most Christians aren’t even aware of it.
Via Infected Worldmind-
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