scepticism about the age of scepticism

Some people call this ‘the age of scepticism’. Sometimes because as a Christian we feel that there is a lot of scepticism against our tradition, which used to be the main influence in our Western part of the world, but it is also because the humanist tradition in line of the Enlightenment finds itself to be very ‘sceptical’.

I myself am very sceptical here, and sort of have my doubts about this self-proclaimed age of ‘scepticism’ in which we are in tough. Most people I know that use that word to describe themselves are not exceptionally sceptical at all, they just fully subscribe to a tradition that likes to apply that word to itself (it’s even more weird when you have people call themselves ‘freethinker’ and they all parrot the same enlightenment-light clichés) and that is sceptical of other traditions, but they never seem to questions the dogmas that every Westerner seems to breathe in and out like a fish does not notice the water.

I wish there was more scepticism about the foundations of our way of life and our Western ways of thinking, but except in new age circles and among conspiracy theorists I do not find much of that kind of scepticism, and those people in most cases completely unsceptical about whatever kind of alternative truth comes their way…

It’s not really a surprise though. Real scepticism, and the willingness to question everything does in most cases lead one away from the tradition one is in. Most of those people are seen as heretics of some kind, except when they gain enough followers to throw over the old order for a new one, or at least establish a separate tradition… And in both ways the real scepticism will die…

Yes one could establish a tradition of scepticism, but that would kinda be self-defeating. Scepticism and the forming of a tradition are very strange bedfellows. Except for the first generation, you never get real sceptics in an existing movement: every sceptic reconstructs a new system by himself, that might be adopted as the new orthodoxy by their followers, and the it will just  fossilise into a new tradition.

I don’t find those who adhere to the scientist tradition to be sceptics at all, except for that they are (like everyone) sceptics about traditions not theirs. But that’s true for almost everybody…

And I wish we’d have more real sceptics…

peace

Bram

An apophatic video interlude with Peter Rollins…

I’ve been talking about apophatic theology, and the limits of language earlier, and the idea will come back in some future posts. Apophatic or negative theology is a very important way of doing theology in the Eastern Orthodox church and some church fathers. The basic idea is that God the Creator does not exist like we do, and is not bound to words and ideas that are derived from what we know as created beings in Creation, so the only way to speak of God is to say what God is not…

Another tradition that is very suspicious of the preciseness of language, when speaking about anything actually, not just God, would be postmodernist continental philosophy, which is quite popular in certain parts of the emerging church. So here is for you the guy with the coolest accent and the weirdest background music in postmodern christianity, Peter Rollins himself.

And no, whatever the description on youtube says, he could actually not be further away from classical christian liberalism, and fits more between old orthodox mystic apophatic negative theology and postmodern linguistic deconstructionism… Both thought systems that couldn’t be removed further from the rationalist roots of the original Christian liberalism… And yes, some of his stuff here is just semantic wordplay probably… Some atheists would object to his definition of atheism probably, but I see where he’s coming from.

What do you think? Is Pete making sense here? Or is he just talking heresy or plain nonsense to you?

shalom

Bram

atheists of all gods except for one?

Let’s start with a popular Richard Dawkins quote:

“We are all atheists about most of the gods humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” – Richard Dawkins

Now, this sounds plausible at first sight, given the fact that one of the accusations for which Christians were fed to the lions in the Roman empire was the charge of atheism, since they did not believe in the gods of the Roman empire.

But even then we need to bring more nuance, so here’s a second quote:

“If you are a Christian,” Lewis says, “you do not have to believe that all other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.” – C.S. Lewis in Mere christianity

I’m with Lewis here. It’s not because I’m an ‘atheist’ to Zeus or Odin, or ‘the God of the violent Jihad’,  in the sense that I don’t believe in them, that I have to reject all of the religion of the people who do believe in them in exactly the way Dawkins reject all religions. I do believe that their view on the spiritual world is wrong, but I will affirm with them that it exists. More like the way a Darwinist rejects Lamarckism than how she rejects Special Creation theory.

(a slightly irrelevant side-note: i do believe that Lamarckism is a valid theory for the evolution of most things without DNA, like cultures, musical genres and languages, mich more than Darwinian evolution…)

So I do disagree with muslims over the character of God (for whom some arabic Christians also use the name allah), but I affirm a lot of things they do believe about the monotheistic God of Abraham, creator of heaven and earth. I do disagree with a lot of the animistic worldview, but I will not say that all of their religion is placebo. I would say that the explanation they offer might be wrong, not that there’s nothing behind their faith… There are traces of the Creator all over creation, and seeds of light are likely to be found in every religion, mixed with human and other influence though… And every truth that can relly considered to be truth has its ultimate source in Him, wherever we find it. And truth is not just found by Christians or enlightened Westerners. We probably can learn from every human being and every culture, and even from most religions… Probably the most uncivilised Indian from the rainforrest can teach us a lot about a lot of subjects… there are seeds of light everywhere, Logos spermatikos as the church fathers called it.

I even do agree with some atheist critique on things done in the name of religion, or even in the name of Christ. Just like a lot of Christians had similar critique, and even Jesus was pretty harsh for the religious elite of his time. But that critique should be used by christians to re-evaluate, not to throw out the baby with the bath-water…

Atheism like the word is used today is not the rejection of a certain religion or God, but the rejection of all of them, even the slightest possibility of any spiritual entity even.  that’s way too drastic: I can say that I don’t believe in the Mokele Mbembe, but that does not mean that I have to reject all reptiles or the existence of living dinosaurs long ago…

shalom

Bram