Last quote from Scruton, p. 157 (its a short book):
...nihilism is the other side of religion: it is the disappointed howl of the believer on discovering that God is dead. The true nihilist is incapable of settling for a world of compromise [he speaks here of politico-religious things]...since it is a world deprived of absolutes. The death of God leaves only one remaining absolute, which is Nothingness. The duty to annihilate is the last remaining glimpse of the transendental in the heart of the one who has lost all belief in it and who cannot live with the loss.
I couldn't help but connect this wonderfully succinct analysis with that which lies at the heart of evolution, its negative engine: death. Read, and feel the irony.
Showing posts with label Book. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book. Show all posts
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Religion the Jumble
From Scruton, p. 102:
...religion simply as a set of doctrines concerning the origin of the world, the laws that govern it and the destiny of mankind will think of faith merely as a substitute for rational argument, destined to crumble before the advance of science or to persist, if at all, as a jumble of tattered superstitions in the midst of a world that refutes them.
Interesting the connections made by those outside the evangelical fold about religion, the world and its interpretation in science.
Much could be said about Scruton's analysis, but that the analysis is made is itself of significance, I think. Particularly that he can see religion as being concerned with a view of the real world, a view denied, I would suggest, by our SADist friends.
...religion simply as a set of doctrines concerning the origin of the world, the laws that govern it and the destiny of mankind will think of faith merely as a substitute for rational argument, destined to crumble before the advance of science or to persist, if at all, as a jumble of tattered superstitions in the midst of a world that refutes them.
Interesting the connections made by those outside the evangelical fold about religion, the world and its interpretation in science.
Much could be said about Scruton's analysis, but that the analysis is made is itself of significance, I think. Particularly that he can see religion as being concerned with a view of the real world, a view denied, I would suggest, by our SADist friends.
Monday, March 10, 2008
War
From my current read:
The West and the Rest, by Roger Scruton (ret'd professor of philosophy)
p. 39:
To remove the violent core from human societies is no easy task, for the urge to violence is planted in us by evolution, and war is a fact of sociobiology.
[then talks about the Christian experience and its grounds for hope, but lovely slide over to this analysis a few pages on:]
p. 43:
[the Enlightenment had given us an abstract God and] had collectively remade the God of Christianity as a creature of the head rather than the heart. God retreated from the world to the far reaches of infinite space, where only vertiginous thoughts could capture him. Daily life is of little concern to such a God, who demands no form of obedience except to the universal precepts of morality. To worship him is to bow in private to the unknowable. Worship conceived in such a way offers no threat to the Enlightenment . . .As God retreated from the world, people reached out to a rival source of membership . . .
Along which way the Sydney Anglican Diocese is the unwitting, but very willing midwife. I remember the Lord Archbishop extolling the virtues of "Christian values" some years ago; when of course, we know the core Christian value: "all our righteousness is as filthy rags". I suggested this to Peter, but received no reply: I guess that's a predictable response from a neo-evangelical to the word of God.
The West and the Rest, by Roger Scruton (ret'd professor of philosophy)
p. 39:
To remove the violent core from human societies is no easy task, for the urge to violence is planted in us by evolution, and war is a fact of sociobiology.
[then talks about the Christian experience and its grounds for hope, but lovely slide over to this analysis a few pages on:]
p. 43:
[the Enlightenment had given us an abstract God and] had collectively remade the God of Christianity as a creature of the head rather than the heart. God retreated from the world to the far reaches of infinite space, where only vertiginous thoughts could capture him. Daily life is of little concern to such a God, who demands no form of obedience except to the universal precepts of morality. To worship him is to bow in private to the unknowable. Worship conceived in such a way offers no threat to the Enlightenment . . .As God retreated from the world, people reached out to a rival source of membership . . .
Along which way the Sydney Anglican Diocese is the unwitting, but very willing midwife. I remember the Lord Archbishop extolling the virtues of "Christian values" some years ago; when of course, we know the core Christian value: "all our righteousness is as filthy rags". I suggested this to Peter, but received no reply: I guess that's a predictable response from a neo-evangelical to the word of God.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Against God
From Before Darwin:237
...since time immemorial, the most obvious argument against God's existence and source of doubt about his unique and universal goodness has been the manifest imperfection of nature, and especially the misery of a great deal of existence that tells of nothing but a bleak purposelessness. As Darwin wrote: 'it revolts our understanding to suppose that [God's] benevolence is not unbounded, for what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time?'
This is from the chapter that deals with evil, goodness, and natural theology. Both the author and the natural theologians he studies are oblivious to the problem of the fall and its central position in Christianity.
Did I write 'problem'? Rather, the fall is the great rend in creation, it is the obliteration, the undoing, of the very-goodness declared by God, and rejection of relationship with God; it is man ejecting God from his life and world. If our theology of God is deficient because of a failed hermeneutic of creation (and I suspect it is in neo-evangelical circles), then our understanding of the fall and the radical besmirching of life with death that came in its train is also inadequate.
Oddly, I don't think that atheism or its materialist cousin has a helpful position on this.
What contemporary 'natural theology' is doing, (and Thomson touches on this, albeit without really understanding it, in my estimation) is to go behind the results of the fall and look at the structure of life and earth history, reading it in the knowledge of history in the Bible, but also seeing, on its own terms, its dependence. Materailism claims that life has its life in itself, finally, but it is not evident! Ironically, materialism now relies upon a certain extended 'vitalism' to explain life, the very thing for which it criticises pre-modern biology!
I met some clients of my employer recently who are profoundly disabled. It was heartbreaking to think of the frustration and bitterness of their experience, and of their parents. The materialist can offer them only dust and blank-faced emptiness in the despair of their position; our Creator God offers new life; restoration to the 'very good' and acknowledgement in Christ that all is not just not well, with the creation but that it is broken; yet his grace shines through to the re-creation.
...since time immemorial, the most obvious argument against God's existence and source of doubt about his unique and universal goodness has been the manifest imperfection of nature, and especially the misery of a great deal of existence that tells of nothing but a bleak purposelessness. As Darwin wrote: 'it revolts our understanding to suppose that [God's] benevolence is not unbounded, for what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time?'
This is from the chapter that deals with evil, goodness, and natural theology. Both the author and the natural theologians he studies are oblivious to the problem of the fall and its central position in Christianity.
Did I write 'problem'? Rather, the fall is the great rend in creation, it is the obliteration, the undoing, of the very-goodness declared by God, and rejection of relationship with God; it is man ejecting God from his life and world. If our theology of God is deficient because of a failed hermeneutic of creation (and I suspect it is in neo-evangelical circles), then our understanding of the fall and the radical besmirching of life with death that came in its train is also inadequate.
Oddly, I don't think that atheism or its materialist cousin has a helpful position on this.
What contemporary 'natural theology' is doing, (and Thomson touches on this, albeit without really understanding it, in my estimation) is to go behind the results of the fall and look at the structure of life and earth history, reading it in the knowledge of history in the Bible, but also seeing, on its own terms, its dependence. Materailism claims that life has its life in itself, finally, but it is not evident! Ironically, materialism now relies upon a certain extended 'vitalism' to explain life, the very thing for which it criticises pre-modern biology!
I met some clients of my employer recently who are profoundly disabled. It was heartbreaking to think of the frustration and bitterness of their experience, and of their parents. The materialist can offer them only dust and blank-faced emptiness in the despair of their position; our Creator God offers new life; restoration to the 'very good' and acknowledgement in Christ that all is not just not well, with the creation but that it is broken; yet his grace shines through to the re-creation.
Darwin's transformation
From Before Darwin: 232
Charles Darwin's transformation from Christian believer to agnostic 'crept over [him] at a very slow rate'. For a long time he held on to a position as a theist, being prepared to believe in the existence of a God but rejecting both the Old Testament, 'from its manifestly false history of the world ... and from its attributing to God the feelings of a vengeful tyrant', and also the miracles of the New Testament.
Darwin trod the path that many individuals, and indeed the broad social sweep has and is treading.
Charles Darwin's transformation from Christian believer to agnostic 'crept over [him] at a very slow rate'. For a long time he held on to a position as a theist, being prepared to believe in the existence of a God but rejecting both the Old Testament, 'from its manifestly false history of the world ... and from its attributing to God the feelings of a vengeful tyrant', and also the miracles of the New Testament.
Darwin trod the path that many individuals, and indeed the broad social sweep has and is treading.
Gosse's Dilemma
From Before Darwin: 230
"When pressed, people often revert to believing two things at once. The evidence that the universe is huge and ancient can be assimilated seemingly without shaking the conviction that the earth itself is 6,000 years old and that all living creatures were created over a two-day period. For example: 'The school books of the present day, while they teach the child that the earth moves, yet assure him that it is a little less than six thousand years old, and that it was made in six days. On the other hand, geologists of all religious creeds are agreed that the earth has existed for an immense series of years.' These last words were written in 1860 (Godwin, C. W., On the Mosaic Cosmogony in Essays and Reviews, Longman Green, London 1860) and appear in a work that arguably presented a greater threat to the Established Church than the evolutionism of Erasmus Darwin, Lamarack, Robert Chambers or even Charles Darwin. Essays and Reviews is an example of the enemy within, a compilation of extremely liberal theological views by noted churchmen and academics. Among their targets was the unnecessary and outmoded belief in miracles and the biblical account of the days of creation."
How days change, but change not!!
"When pressed, people often revert to believing two things at once. The evidence that the universe is huge and ancient can be assimilated seemingly without shaking the conviction that the earth itself is 6,000 years old and that all living creatures were created over a two-day period. For example: 'The school books of the present day, while they teach the child that the earth moves, yet assure him that it is a little less than six thousand years old, and that it was made in six days. On the other hand, geologists of all religious creeds are agreed that the earth has existed for an immense series of years.' These last words were written in 1860 (Godwin, C. W., On the Mosaic Cosmogony in Essays and Reviews, Longman Green, London 1860) and appear in a work that arguably presented a greater threat to the Established Church than the evolutionism of Erasmus Darwin, Lamarack, Robert Chambers or even Charles Darwin. Essays and Reviews is an example of the enemy within, a compilation of extremely liberal theological views by noted churchmen and academics. Among their targets was the unnecessary and outmoded belief in miracles and the biblical account of the days of creation."
How days change, but change not!!
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Flood
In Before Darwin, much is said about fossils and the biblical flood.
Most of it is typically question-begging; and amusingly, the question begged is begged in a hollow flourish, as though some evidence is provided. Never the case!
The book's discussion about the flood and fossils is typical.
There's lots of material on the net on these topics, so I won't labour the point.
But I will say this. Both in Before Darwin, and in the older sources cited, there seems to be a concept operating that views the global flood as a relatively calm affair, not the overwhelming catastrophe it was. This is one reason the ark would be designed as it was: best for stability in very rough water (sea state 10...for a year?). The flood would have been of such immense proportions that the tectonic, volcanic and hydraulic dimensions would begger our imaginations.
Look at the tiny volcano at Mt St. Helens in the 80s: canyons carved out in hours, trees flatted over vast areas, etc. Imagine what it would be like with huge vulcanism over the entire earth! Big stuff, indeed.
Then look at the gross geology of the earth, with features than could not be formed by current processes at current rates: hundreds of square miles of lava sheets, sedimentary beds of similar size, fossil beds with millions of creatures jamb-packed together, smashed, bent and twisted.
Most of it is typically question-begging; and amusingly, the question begged is begged in a hollow flourish, as though some evidence is provided. Never the case!
The book's discussion about the flood and fossils is typical.
There's lots of material on the net on these topics, so I won't labour the point.
But I will say this. Both in Before Darwin, and in the older sources cited, there seems to be a concept operating that views the global flood as a relatively calm affair, not the overwhelming catastrophe it was. This is one reason the ark would be designed as it was: best for stability in very rough water (sea state 10...for a year?). The flood would have been of such immense proportions that the tectonic, volcanic and hydraulic dimensions would begger our imaginations.
Look at the tiny volcano at Mt St. Helens in the 80s: canyons carved out in hours, trees flatted over vast areas, etc. Imagine what it would be like with huge vulcanism over the entire earth! Big stuff, indeed.
Then look at the gross geology of the earth, with features than could not be formed by current processes at current rates: hundreds of square miles of lava sheets, sedimentary beds of similar size, fossil beds with millions of creatures jamb-packed together, smashed, bent and twisted.
Friday, February 29, 2008
More from Before Darwin
Another lovely tidbit from Thomson's wonderful book Before Darwin p. 200 in the chapter "This is Atheism":
Atheism in the form of evolutionary ideas opened the door for the discovery and investigation of second cause mechanisms flowing from the properties of material nature ... Evolution was always more than a purely scientific notion, however, and both before and after Charles Darwin its consequences were felt in a larger political context than the narrow debate over Genesis.
Evolution basically refers to change. Whether as an actual mechanism or a metaphor, evolution was an attractive notion to political theorists ...
The final part of the quote reminds me of what Stephen Gould has said, that evolution has more to do with 19th C predilictions than science.
The first part is congruent with Thomson's other 'natural a-theology' comments (that is, evolution couples with atheism inevitably).
But, Thomson is wrong, and I suspect, tendentiously so, in splitting the flowering of modern science from Genesian belief.
The split that had to be made was from Aristoteleanism, with its demands for stasis and a rigid and abstracted notion of perfection, which was then read back into what God 'must' have done. It was this that held back science.
Early modern scientists who took Genesis at its word were not kept from investigation, but were free to openly enquire. One of the great falsehoods of modern paganism (athesim, humanism, materialism versions) is that free enquiry came from itself. It did not, paganism produces an intellectual introversion which stifles enquiry with dogma. The early modern scientists, driven by faith in God's creation, and putting creation into the realm of objective knowledge (which Genesis 1 does), were able to 'open it' to their investigations and could fearlessly go anywhere, knowing who God is as revealed to us definitively in the incarnation.
Atheism in the form of evolutionary ideas opened the door for the discovery and investigation of second cause mechanisms flowing from the properties of material nature ... Evolution was always more than a purely scientific notion, however, and both before and after Charles Darwin its consequences were felt in a larger political context than the narrow debate over Genesis.
Evolution basically refers to change. Whether as an actual mechanism or a metaphor, evolution was an attractive notion to political theorists ...
The final part of the quote reminds me of what Stephen Gould has said, that evolution has more to do with 19th C predilictions than science.
The first part is congruent with Thomson's other 'natural a-theology' comments (that is, evolution couples with atheism inevitably).
But, Thomson is wrong, and I suspect, tendentiously so, in splitting the flowering of modern science from Genesian belief.
The split that had to be made was from Aristoteleanism, with its demands for stasis and a rigid and abstracted notion of perfection, which was then read back into what God 'must' have done. It was this that held back science.
Early modern scientists who took Genesis at its word were not kept from investigation, but were free to openly enquire. One of the great falsehoods of modern paganism (athesim, humanism, materialism versions) is that free enquiry came from itself. It did not, paganism produces an intellectual introversion which stifles enquiry with dogma. The early modern scientists, driven by faith in God's creation, and putting creation into the realm of objective knowledge (which Genesis 1 does), were able to 'open it' to their investigations and could fearlessly go anywhere, knowing who God is as revealed to us definitively in the incarnation.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Natural a-theology
The debate has raged over the place of natural theology, but the SADists to a man have failed to give us anything about the impressive success of natural a-theology.
I hope to say more about it soon, but in his book Before Darwin, Keith Thomson plots the course of an emerging natural a-theology that set the face of intellectual enquiry determinedly away from a God who has spoken in our time-space and gives materialism the ascendency. This materialism finds its home in its own 'natural theology', with astounding success.
Natural theology is, of course, eschewed by the SADists, in fear of the success of materialism, I daresay; but in that fear, they remove God from this world and make the incarnation impotent.
I hope to say more about it soon, but in his book Before Darwin, Keith Thomson plots the course of an emerging natural a-theology that set the face of intellectual enquiry determinedly away from a God who has spoken in our time-space and gives materialism the ascendency. This materialism finds its home in its own 'natural theology', with astounding success.
Natural theology is, of course, eschewed by the SADists, in fear of the success of materialism, I daresay; but in that fear, they remove God from this world and make the incarnation impotent.
Blockish Brick-makers all?
The SADist disdain for Genesis 1 is not new.
John Edwards had this to say about the removal of Genesis 1 from the real world: "the fond Notions which had possess'd some men's heads, and had been divulg'd by their pens, viz. that Moses is not to be understood according to the Letter, that he speaks to the capacity of Blockish Brick-makers that were recently come out of Egypt, and scarcely understood common sense, and therefore any Story of a Cock and a Bull would serve them... we must not think that he would trouble the brains (if you can suppose they had any) of a company of Dull Slaves with Natural Philosophy."
(Against William Whiston in 1697 in Thompson, "Before Darwin", p. 160)
John Edwards had this to say about the removal of Genesis 1 from the real world: "the fond Notions which had possess'd some men's heads, and had been divulg'd by their pens, viz. that Moses is not to be understood according to the Letter, that he speaks to the capacity of Blockish Brick-makers that were recently come out of Egypt, and scarcely understood common sense, and therefore any Story of a Cock and a Bull would serve them... we must not think that he would trouble the brains (if you can suppose they had any) of a company of Dull Slaves with Natural Philosophy."
(Against William Whiston in 1697 in Thompson, "Before Darwin", p. 160)
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