I read John Haught’s God and the New Atheism (2007) before I started this website, and found it not only poorly argued and tendentious, but dreadfully written. (Opaque writing is the occupational disease of theologians, since they have to argue for something that doesn’t exist.)
Over at Metamagician, Brother Blackford is reading Haught’s book and, in a series of short posts, giving some highlights (hint: he doesn’t like it). I refer you to Blackford but also to Haught’s book.
After all, Haught (there should be a “y” at the end of his name) is a Catholic scholar at Georgetown University, widely regarded as one of those sophisticated theologians whose erudite arguments are either neglected or not understood by Gnu Atheists. That’s hogwash: scratch a “sophisticated” theologian and find fuzzy thinking cloaked in high-sounding prose. Here, from Blackford, is Haught’s definition of “faith” from the book:
Faith, as theology uses the term, is neither an irrational leap nor ‘belief without evidence.’ It is an adventurous movement of trust that opens reason up to its appropriate living space, namely, the inexhaustibly deep dimension of Being, Meaning, Truth, and Goodness. Faith is not the enemy of reason but its cutting edge. Faith is what keeps reason from turning in on itself and suffocating in its own self-enclosure. Faith is what opens our minds to the infinite horizon in which alone reason can breathe freely and in which action can gain direction. Reason requires a world much larger than the one that mere rationalism or scientific naturalism is able to provide. Without the clearing made by faith, reason withers, and conduct has no calling. Faith is what gives reason a future, and morality a meaning. (God and the New Atheists, page 75).
Got that stuff about self-suffocating reason rescued only by the deep breaths of faith? And the need for faith to give meaning to morals? This isn’t sophistication, it’s just anti-scientism and the old “divine dictum” argument couched in fancy academic prose. That, and a redefinition of faith into something completely incomprehensible. All of which, of course, neglects the question: How do you know that the tenets of faith are true?
Being carried away by overwhelming feelings of something transcendent (Haught’s schtick argument for faith) is no guarantee that those feelings give you any insight into truth. I’m truly amazed that people can make a living writing stuff like this.
If the accommodationists have made you worried that you’re missing some subtle and convincing arguments for God, this book is the cure.
Here, watch Dennett pwn Haught’s view that science and faith are compatible. Dan also argues for a scientific study of religion. (David Sloan Wilson also claims that the explanation for belief without evidence is based on evolution. I think he’s right, but only partly right.)
So, if “Faith” isn’t “belief without evidence” then you can provide the evidence, right John?
Put up or shut up.
He probably defines evidence as “having a good feeling about Jesus”.
Really, really, really believing that something is true makes it true.
So does Capitalizing it. If it’s Capitalized it must be Important and True. But only capitalization of the first letter conveys this Truthiness. If you capitalize the WHOLE THING then you’re shouting, demonstrating both INSECURITY and STRIDENCY.
These are Very Important Distinctions.
I find it’s often a Good Idea™ to sprinkle in the occasional Superscripted Glyph® as well….
Cheers,
b&
You people are so close minded. Haught is exactly right – faith is a beautiful adventure in trust that opens you up to living in a space where reason alone cannot take you. Now, go put on your special underwear, drink a tall glass of cow urine, grab your chicken and swing that fucker till you can once again find direction in this infinite horizon we call life.
“living in a space where reason alone cannot take you”
Not sure I want to live in a place where my reason could not follow me.
-Sorry, dear reason, I must leave you here. Keep the engine roaring.
:- )
That was meant for Mx’s little joke.
LOL!!
Grabbing the machete of stupid does not make for a clear path.
We should just hold out for the inevitable “No True Theologian” defense from people who claim that some OTHER book makes a better case. I’ve seen better written and more meaningful philosophical statements in fortune cookies.
As a former Christian, I’m often disappointed that Christian spokesmen (it’s usually men) don’t have anything better to say. Frankly, the average fundie preacher makes more sense than this guy. The fundie preacher would still be wrong, but at least he’d be making clear propositions and using plain language.
I really do wonder where theologians learn to speak in an avalanche of big words. The only theologian I ever met was a nice old Lutheran minister who would come by my old church every so often to give 45 minute sermons that were as dense as lead. No one really got anything out of them, because it was so easy to nod off. I couldn’t help but think that they’re just a group of people who only communicate with each other, but whose existence is used to justify all manner of beliefs.
I think that’s the point, honestly – you’re not actually supposed to pay attention to the content of his speech, you’re just supposed to be comforted by the fact that someone with a smooth, warm voice is saying things that sound nice and deep about your predetermined values.
I mean, if you completely ignore the content of their speech (pretend you don’t speak English, for instance – if you know another language, try listening in it) and just pay attention to how it’s delivered, you can see a huge difference in the way they talk – you can completely understand Haught’s message of warm and comfort and I’m doing the thinking for you without understanding a single word he says.
As soon as Dennet starts talking, on the other hand, it’s clear from his tone of voice that he’s saying something, and his goal is for you to understand what he’s saying.
It’s really interesting, I think.
As is made clear in the attached video an the Eusebius quote I posted in the previous thread, there is a huge segment of the population who really couldn’t give a damn about objective reality. They will, instead, make up fantasies about how they wish the universe were, and then proceed to live entirely in those fantasy lands.
The problem, of course, is that this strategy is exactly as useful as that of a young child who wets the bed. There are a few moments of relief and warm pleasure…and then a disproportionate amount of discomfort in dealing with the aftermath.
As Jung put it, “there is no coming to consciousness without pain.” The religious have chosen unconsciousness in preference to pain…not realizing that their choice has absolutely no analgesic properties whatsoever.
Cheers,
b&
I used to put a towel on it & go back to sleep…
too much information?!
Don’t scratch it, either. And get some ointment. And for fuck’s sake, when will you learn that goats don’t enjoy Twister.
🙁
awww sowwy 🙁 i funny-failed
Actually, Jung was wrong.
There is really more pain in denial than there is in facing reality.
(I wrote my doctoral dissertation on “coming to consciousness”, so I know rather a lot about the processes involved.)
I think Abraham Maslow analyzed it better, “The further an individual’s processes are outside his awareness, the more likely those processes are to be dysfunctional.”
There can definitely be pain in coming to consciousness, but it is not a given. L
Hmmm….
First, we’re in complete agreement that failing to embrace reality is a losing proposition, fraught with pain.
The reason I like the Jung quote is that it’s a gentle way of prodding those who need to come to consciousness but are avoiding doing so for fear of the pain they think it will bring.
Of course, the pain (if any) it actually does bring is almost always dwarfed by the pain of avoidance — and that’s the whole point. It’s like the child who doesn’t want the antiseptic applied to the owie.
I often think that the biggest problem humans individually and humanity in general faces is an inability to think past the negative consequences of a necessary action to the benefits that will accrue as a result. We seem devoted to pursuing short-term pleasures at the expense of long-term flourishing.
There may well be nothing more important to study than cognitive dissonance.
Cheers,
b&
I agree completely.
I have often said that the biggest problem with the human race is its collective inability to project consequences beyond the next five minutes. L
A character in a detective novel once remarked that getting a departmental citation was like pissing yourself in a dark suit – you get a warm feeling, but nobody notices.
Inspired by some really bad Vogon poetry.
If only Haught’s large intestine had taken matters into its own “hands”!
You’ll start Ben off again!
What, is there somebody with a peritoneum in need of perforation or something?
b&
Oi! Fondling is one thing, perforation is a whole ‘nother.
The words ‘messy’ & ‘smelly’ come to mind.
For those who don’t know the reference (i.e., actually have a life): http://hitch14.tripod.com/chapter_7.htm
Oh freddled gruntbuggly!
I expect that theologians were probably on the ship populated by, among others, the telephone sanitizers …
That one paragraph from Haught was very painful to read.
I know we should look at both sides, if only to understand where they are in error, but really, I cannot be arsed to waste time on theological claptrap that might be better spent watching paint dry or shopping for sky hooks – well that is my “adventurous movement of trust” “cutting edge” of reason[ing].
As I noted at Russell’s place, reviewing this book afforded the opportunity to point out the epistemic shortcomings of theology as judged by its failure to respect four basic constraints when justifying knowledge claims, see http://www.naturalism.org/projecting_god.htm
From the review:
Haught flouts some basic epistemic norms which ground the plausibility of truth claims: insulating such claims from the influence of bias and wishful thinking; providing public evidence against which subjective experience can be checked; avoiding circularity in one’s justifications; and providing an account of cognitive mechanisms, of how we know. These requirements seem uncontroversial, not special to science (and therefore not special to naturalism), so it seems fair to ask that theology respect them. If it doesn’t, it risks losing status as a serious contender in the argument about how we should best represent reality. Any mode of knowing with pretensions to objectivity must do at least some justice to these requirements, and no doubt to others not mentioned here.
A review of Haught’s Is Nature Enough? is at http://www.naturalism.org/haught.htm
Issa good review. I have it printed, and I’ve read it more than once.
One fairly amusing side-effect of psychobabble is its tendency to capitalize nouns into something IMPORTANT.
People who have something real to say rarely beat around the bush; they just say it, without unnecessary embellishment. L
Hey! I RESEMBLE that remark!
With the exception of the first two and last two sentences, Haught’s thoughts on “faith” would actually be a pretty good commentary on intuition. It is true that reason would be stunted and limited were it not for great leaps of intuition. But of course the difference between intuition and faith is that if your intuitive leap turns out to be bullshit, you are supposed to discard it…
While reading it, I was thinking something similar: that it was a description of imagination, not faith.
I thought that the paragraph actually made sense if you substitute emotion for “faith.” Try this:
“Emotion is what gives reason a future, and morality a meaning.” Ok. Too poetic and filled with hyperbole, sure, but the above sounds a bit like a neurologist trying to argue that reason and emotion are inseparable aspects of the brain.
Theology only makes sense to me if I’m constantly thinking analogically: okay, now what is this like; all right, what might that be reminiscent of? I wonder if this is also how believers reason through passages such as this one by Haught — blurring distinctions between things that are only superficially similar, and concluding that they’ve said or thought something really deep.
Aha, see, there’s a trick you’re missing: they don’t. In computer terms, there’s a kind of silly idea of “write only memory” – that is, memory to which you can write data, but never read what was written. This is clearly useless; why would you ever write information that will never be read again?*
The point of this analogy, though, is that most apologia end up being write-only memory. Some dude writes an apologetic, nobody reads it, but they’re just comforted by the fact that it exists in some ephemeral sense on the bookshelf at Barnes and Noble.
The only common exception I’m aware of is CS Lewis, who had the gift of writing bad ideas convincingly (e.g, the execrable liar, lunatic or lord trilemma). Beyond that, and the big names like St. Augustine (whom people can name, but have not read (and you can usually tell because they think his arguments are actually good)), almost nobody outside of theology actually reads apologetics. They just exist, as a ground state of being, and everyone takes comfort from that fact and doesn’t really think about it too hard.
*This is so meaningless, in fact, that in certain file systems (the one Windows uses, for instance), the ability to write data necessarily implies the ability to read data, but not the other way around.
“write only memory” … This is clearly useless; why would you ever write information that will never be read again?
It is not useless. It can be used for testing network bandwidth, for instance. In which example you want to know how long it takes to copy a file across a network link, but don’t actually want to save the file, and don’t want the writing to disk part interfering with your network metrics.
CS Lewis, who had the gift of writing bad ideas convincingly
I have never found Lewis’ writing to be convincing, so it always puzzles me when I hear someone say that.
When I remarked to an old fiend of mine, the late C.H. Sisson, who was a fine poet and for a time at least an Anglican of a rather odd kind, that I had been wholly unconvinced by CSL’s ‘Surprised by Joy’, he at once rejoined, ‘Yes, no surprise, no joy.’
From a computer’s point of view, a printout is write-only.
Oh my God, That’s not parody?It is depressing to realize that well-educated people can read that paragraph and think that it says something. Wouldn’t you love to be able to ask admirers to tell you what it means?
Oh my god, YES. That’s actually a great idea. Take people who agree with the paragraph, and separately ask them to explain a few points/answer a few questions about it. Then see how different the answers are. That would be the best kind of proof that this guy is saying nothing.
The author might see that as an endorsement of his essay – it just shows it has universal appeal and multifacted layers of meaning!
I just wish I could better the following from Benjamin Disreali’s wonderful description of rival William Gladstone:
A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself.
To paraphrase Disraeli’s differentiation between ‘tragedy’ and ‘disaster’: ‘If Mr. Gladstone were to fall in to the Thames, that would be a tragedy; if someone were to pull him out again, that would be a disaster!’
For anyone who is interested: I’ve written an extensive review of Haughts book for the Secular Web Library. It can be found here: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/bart_klink/new-atheism.html
Despite all the words, Haught(y) has still not adequately defined faith – and he denies the characterization of faith which is commonly accepted by the religious.
David Sloan Wilson says, “We believe things when they’re useful, not when they’re true.”
This is misleading, because it ignores the fact that we are often told things that are not true by people we are inclined to trust. (That’s religion in a nutshell.) And those people lie to us because our belief is useful TO THEM, not to us.
There is a very high correlation between utility and truth, at least in science.
Is German John Haught’s native language? If it is I’ll give him a pass on capitalizing common nouns.
If it’s not, I will mock him mercilessly for it. It puts him in the same category as the author of “A Million Little Pieces”.
Our Founding Fathers did it too. It’s at worst an Eighteenth Century sort of thing.
In the video, John Haught tells of how religion has people appealing to this “other realm” aside from the one in front of them, which appeals to their desires.
You could substitute “imagination” for this “other realm” and be none the wiser. John Haught offers not a hint of discernment between human imagination and what humans wish or think to be true.
And he speaks in Big Tent terms of religion in general – that the defining essence is this belief in another realm of existence. Yet he seems to utterly ignore the fact that such appeals have led people to utterly contradictory beliefs! With no epistemological method to discern fact from fiction.
Instead of noting the obvious: that human imagination serves to produce exactly such states of affairs – John Haught bumbles on ignoring the obvious, as if there were good reasons to keep taking all these contradictory claims seriously…and as if there were some actual cohesiveness.
Every single time a “sophisticated Christian,” especially condescending liberal Christians, gets around to making any case for their faith, you see the emptiness of their boasts and tsk-tsks concerning New Atheist naivete. They got nuthin’. Literally.
Vaal.
Thankfully, for us – most Christians aren’t fond of these slippery theological declarations. They are more literal in their faith – Noah’s Ark was fucking REAL, OK?
His description of faith gives no information at all. It would be like a kid asking his dad what a car is and getting this:
Kid: Daddy, what’s a car?
Dad: A car is a wondrous freedom giver.
Kid: Can you be more clear?
Dad: A car is a marvel of technology.
Kid: I’m still not getting it.
Dad: A car limitless possibilities.
Kid: Uh, yeah. Thanks.
Nice analogy. It helped me understand what rung false to me about Haught’s description.
Why is it that whenever we get a spiel about what Faith is in theology I’m reminded of this by Kant?
The light dove, cleaving the air in her free flight, and feeling its resistance, might imagine that its flight would be still easier in empty space.
Which could be updated:
The theologian, cleaving the air of reason in his free flight, and feeling its epistemic resistace, might imagine that his nonsense would still be weightier in verbiage.
“Faith is not the enemy of reason but its cutting edge.”
Laughable. I prefer Ursula K. Leguin’s take: “Belief is the wound that knowledge heals.”
Oh my god, I believe that counts as an epic burn (or I suppose, Epic Burn as Haught might say). I’ll have to remember it.
And my respect for LeGuin goes up another notch.
Faith, as theology uses the term, is neither an irrational leap nor ‘belief without evidence.’ It is an adventurous movement of trust that opens reason up to its appropriate living space, namely, the inexhaustibly deep dimension of Being, Meaning, Truth, and Goodness. Faith is not the enemy of reason but its cutting edge.
Amazing. The religious mind and sensibilities has to be considered one of the wonders of the world. Though, as Dennett quite reasonably pointed out, studying it and understanding it – premises, motivations and etiology – is crucially important for humanity’s future.
But I can see where Haught might have had a point if “faith” had been replaced by “hypotheses” or, as several others have argued, by “imagination”. On which there is the quote of Einstein’s – probably well known here, though probably unheard of in theological circles:
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.
But Einstein, I expect, also expended a great deal of effort and thought – genius being, as he said, 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration – trying to find out which parts of his imagination corresponded to the real world, which facts supported the hypotheses – a perspective or philosophy entirely foreign to the religious.
What I find remarkable, and entirely problematic, about that is their apparent argument: “If God exists then …” which then gets transmuted into, in effect, “Because God exists and I have his ear my statements about morality, foreign policy, dress codes and thought-content have to be accepted and acted upon as coming from God Himself” – talk about straining at the gnat and swallowing the camel whole. I wouldn’t give a tinker’s damn if they believed in the Tooth-Fairy, the Great Pumpkin, Jehovah or the FSM except for what they think they have a right to claim by virtue of that dogmatically asserted, though entirely hypothetical, existence.
It was actually Thomas Edison who said genius is 1% inspiration and 100% perspiration.
I stand corrected – right you are.
“Faith, as theology uses the term…”
Transubstantiation, as catholiscism uses the term…
these mad mind is exactly talking about faith: it’s the borderless world of fantasy for the brainless, where every word is twisted and every question is answered. and were the magic of the sunglasses project a beautiful flower over every stinking object. It’s the voice of the deceiver who don’t dare to look at reality. If this is said by a man who stand in life you could say : “you are a bit deluded”, but these people has build a bookcase between them and the reality outside. It are cowards.
Oh hai, I know I’ve thrown stuff at the same passage at my place – I remember this bit –
“the inexhaustibly deep dimension of Being, Meaning, Truth, and Goodness.”
Hmm. Close…
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2010/have-some-slush/
Theology
I knew it!
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2010/more-haughtiness/
Same dang passage:
Jesus and Mo, too.
http://www.jesusandmo.net/2010/10/19/done/
Very clever, very funny, very apropos. Almost as much as one of the “endorsements” on their site:
…humor is humor and this cartoonist doesn’t have it. Karl Giberson
This guy is still too literalist. Death and rebirth myths have been going on forever in our history. The phoenix bird. Jesus. Sylvia Plath’s queen bee. What he’s describing here is simply a tame version of it: a transformation of the old, limited scientific mind into something better.
The thing is, these myths are parables, pedagogic tales to teach something, an analogy, an example. Plath was not referring to an actual bee! Jeez. All theology is the bad joke of people who take the story literally and misses what the storyteller meant. Which isn’t much, by the way. It’s all about how getting to know yourself helps figuring out what’s your place in the world, how you fit in, what are you doing here, etc. That’s what “finding meaning” means. The process that turns your old, lost, split person confronted against the rest of the world into your new&improved whole person is the real meaning of the death&rebirth myths. It’s all a personal experience. Nothing to do with how to know the external world. That’s what science is for!
It’s beyond parody. What mockery would be sillier? Wit is the rat’s incisor, ceaselessly gnawing the knots that bind inspiration, the crow pecking the hawk while it attempts to soar in transcendence, utility, futility, fluff and virility, abundance and redundancy.
Keats: Beauty is truth, and truth, beauty. On second thought, maybe not.
Not sophisticated reason, tempered by observation of what is available to provide. Then science meet exactly reasoned requirements, ability == availability.
I’m always briefly jarred when I see Haught’s name. It bears an unfortunate similarity to James Haught, an old co-worker of mine and editor of the Charleston (WV) Gazette.
Jim’s written a few books himself. Let’s just say he has somewhat different views from this clown’s.
Another perfect example of religious double speak and obfuscation. That anyone can be taken in by such a lullaby of bullshit truly amazes me. The desire to be lulled is strong.
I quote (again) Sir Peter Medawar (The Hope of Progress, 1974):