I’m reading a very good essay by Andrew Davison (DPhil, Biochemistry, Oxford) who is the tutor in Doctrine at Wescott House, Cambridge. He is speaking in general regarding the presentation of the Gospel message and Christianity in general to seekers and doubters alike. He is specifically addressing the use of “reason” and what “reason” means. He begins to trace the history of the idea of “reason” and its use and of course comes to the Enlightenment and the postmodern shift. As an aside, he helpfully differentiates between the, what I would call more radical postmodernism, the type that questions the very possibility of reason and the more common understanding of postmodernism that simply notes how “reason” is always context-laden and used in and under the employ of a narrative. I quote him at length:
All thought begins somewhere, and there is more than one place to begin. There is more than one way to think, and no one way is conveniently marked out as better than all the others. Western philosophy came to see this over the course of the twentieth century. This was part of the collapse of the Enlightenment project, which had supposed there to be only one way to be rational…This is a welcomed collapse. It is a genuine advance to acknowledge more than one mode of rationality, as is the realization that all thought involved prior commitments.
Several consequences follow…The first is that no one view of the world can rest on its laurels. None of us can take it for granted that our particular world-view is better than all the rest, or that it is the ‘natural’ or ‘obvious’ way to understand things. No longer can any perspective claim to be neutral, supposing that all the others are biased. As the philosophers like to say, there is no view “from nowhere’; thought involves presuppositions. That is not to say that no preconception is any better than any other, or more accurate. It simply means that there are always preconceptions.
As an immediate result, secular thought is not privileged over religious thought by means of some obvious and effortless superiority…Here the twentieth century’s tectonic shifts over reason come to our [the church] aid. Because there is no thought without prior commitments to axioms, no way of seeing and thinking has automatic pride of place. Intellectually, if Christianity were in a culturally stronger position, this realization would serve to nudge us out of our complacency. That would be no bad thing. Since, however, the dominant mode of rationality in the West is not Christian but secular, the message that no stance is neutral, and automatically better than any other, works strongly in the favour of the Christian apologist. Atheist rationality must state its case like any other. Naturalism is a faith commitment, and one that naturalist deny in their daily lives and loves.
This is all old news. This particular light dawned some time ago, especially for anyone exposed to thinking from Continental Europe. It was a real breakthrough in understanding what it means to understand, but it came decades ago.
That last point is interesting because one reason I think the New Atheists haven’t received much traction in the academy is because their views are already out of date and far behind current philosophy. I would imagine that most philosophers (of whatever bent) might read a New Atheist work and imagine they were reading a freshman philosophy paper by the student who slept through the history part of the course. The New Atheists’ books have done much better with the less educated, but we might well imagine this is true because it may be the first time they have ever heard these arguments. And, for a popular audience, everything is easy to understand when presented in black and white, right or wrong, as one shouts and pounds the podium. The other reason for the cold response from the academy is no doubt the writers’ lack of sophistication, complexity, or subtlety of argument in their works. Well, that, and the fact none of them have the foggiest notion what they are talking about when it comes to the history of philosophical thought or theology in general. If one is going to attack something, it helps to know what it is.
Clearly the New Atheists never got the memo that the Enlightenment project has been over for some time now and their view of reason is no longer privileged and has been unmasked. Oh well. Get use to it and get over it.
However, it is not only the New Atheists who didn’t get the memo. Many evangelicals seem to have also been absent the day it was circulated. I will post more on that irony in the near future.
Byzantine Dream 
“As an immediate result, secular thought is not privileged over religious thought by means of some obvious and effortless superiority.”
True enough.. the privilege comes from hard work and effort.. the effort involved in teasing reality apart from imagination, using the bedrock of empiricism. The secular is many views, from many perspectives. But what they share vs religion is an appreciation of fiction. If something is fiction, it isn't real. Things like fairies, gods, Hogwarts are fiction, while electrons, stars, and humans are real. Telling the difference is a matter of work and consistent, rational engagement with reality. Really, it can be done!
“The academy” is perfectly happy with atheism and secularism- it is the dominant position, though militantcy generally is not, and is left to activists. Your writer is drawing, as usual with your correspondents, a false equivalence.. between true and false ideas, by claiming “worldviews”, “perspectives”, etc. allow the supplanting of reason by wishful thinking.
Christians should make a straighforward case for the necessary truth of god, because it does stuff that wouldn't happen otherwise by naturalistic means, in some demonstrable way. But if the idea requires faith, or some squirrely dispensation from postmodernism, or some visceral feeling, then don't bother philosophers about it.. it is a matter for novelists, theologians, and other “creative” types. Possibly for psychologists.
I will grant that the complexity of our social and imaginative world, which is very real in its way, and certainly influential in our lives, makes it tempting to amplify this kind of reality to more cosmic dimensions. But you should resist that temptation.
Anyhow, I look forward to your further posts.
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Burk,
“True enough.. the privilege comes from hard work and effort..”
Yes, and historically most of the hard work and heavy lifting was done by Christians or those with a Christian influenced world-view. Modern science certainly didn’t come from narratives derived from atheism. So your point?
I notice you don’t want to address the core of Davison’s critique. Is it because the postmodern turn completely undercuts your faith, your empiricism? Is it because it makes it impossible for you to throw out the words “evidence” and “facts” as if they were magical incantations protecting you from scrutiny? Is it because it makes it clear you believe by faith, like all of us?
You keep wanting to argue from a place that no longer exists. Why not try engaging with the reality that your philosophical position was discredited long ago.
I’m reminded of the occasional Japanese soldier who would be found still hiding on some Pacific island thinking the war was still on, only to find it had been lost.
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Darrell-
Postmodernism is a menu of things, some good and some bad, like most movements. Here is what I get from the wiki site: “Postmodernism postulates that many, if not all, apparent realities are only social constructs and are therefore subject to change.”
This seems to be a fair, if blunt, representation of what you are trying to say. And it is simply false. Many things are social constructs, but many things are not. What is to decide between them? That is the question. Rocks are not social constructs, though many of our perspectives on them are. Do we decide what is real based on tests of reality in that reality, i.e. empiricism? Or do priests tell us what is real?
I can easily posit that everything about god is a social construct- there is nothing else about it that can be rigorously discerned or demonstrated. On the other hand, things like the big bang, electrons, etc. are not social constructs, however overlaid they may be with socially constructed meanings, and however dimly we grast their fully “other” qualities. They have an existence outside of us that, given the reality we live in, as as real as anything else in that reality, and whose core properties are not socially constructed.
End of story. If you want to claim that everything is as unreal as everything else, and postmodernism gives us freedom to call black white and white black, we will have to part company.
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Burk,
This is part of the problem. To understand what Davison is talking about would require more work than looking up something on Wikipedia.
The postmodernism I believe in is exactly what Davison noted in the quotes and I explicitly talked about the differentiation he makes. Did you not read or understand the difference?
Again, I notice you don’t want to address the “reality” of the shift he speaks of and what it means for your faith, your scientism. That, I know, would require that hard work and effort you were speaking of.
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“That is not to say that no preconception is any better than any other, or more accurate.”
So, how do we figure this out? Presumably some work is involved, not just rhetorical dancing around, as you and he are doing. If you have a point to make, please make it.
“Since, however, the dominant mode of rationality in the West is not Christian but secular, the message that no stance is neutral, and automatically better than any other, works strongly in the favour of the Christian apologist.”
This argument only works if indeed every view point and preconception is just as good as any other. Since he has not done the work of showing one better or not better, rather casting aspersions on all rationality and reason. This is no way forward, if one is an intellectual. If he were to go back to the well of why x-ianity is better or worse than the enlightenment project in accounting for how the world works, or even accounting for its own narrative in a rigorous historical and logical way, he would find it rather wanting and agree that the secular axioms are superior. But that supposes that reason has a role in the process at all! Does it?
You ask about the “shift”. Ask any scientist, and they will deny that any shift has happened. Reality lies before them just as before, reluctant, but not entirely inscrutible, rewarding reason, knowledge, and insight with further understanding. Your hobby-horse is truly without merit, though certainly interesting in an academic kind of way.
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It brings to mind Luther's quote “Reason is the Devil's harlot, who can do nought but slander and harm whatever God says and does.”
Needless to say, I beg to differ.
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Burk,
“So, how do we figure this out? Presumably some work is involved…”
Well join the current philosophical discussion! That is what people are currently trying to do. But you are missing the greater point, which is that we all start from some faith position. There is the point. Instead of jumping to who is right, recognize and deal with that “reality” first.
“This argument only works if indeed every view point and preconception is just as good as any other. Since he has not done the work of showing one better or not better, rather casting aspersions on all rationality and reason.”
No, it works to show that the scientist is not some neutral objective observer and that all others are biased or blinded by faith. Further, I only gave you a few quotes. His point was not in showing what is “better” (although “better” certainly doesn’t make sense from a materialist perspective!) but that we all start with presuppositions. The entire essay does address how it is better but that isn’t the point right now.
“You ask about the “shift”. Ask any scientist, and they will deny that any shift has happened.”
Excuse me but Davison has a doctorate in biochemistry! The sciences are replete (read my current post) with those who are aware of the shift. Get out much? Besides, who cares what any one scientist somewhere says about anything? The overwhelming understanding in philosophy departments (including philosophy of science) everywhere is that the shift has happened, for better or worse. To deny a shift has happened is to declare a complete ignorance of what has gone on in philosophy for at least the last 50 years if not longer. You are welcome to do so—it would make your arguments at least understandable.
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Well, put some meat on those bones.. how addled are cosmologists by their faith preconceptions, compared to the theists in their faith preconceptions? Compare and contrast.
There is no wholesale shift, just a continuing need for humility, the most important point of which is to put one's models of reality to a true test against reality, rather than sophistry, armchair philosophy, and imaginative theology.
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Burk,
The meat is out there. Continue reading Eric’s blog, this one, go to libraries, and take classes. But to be taken seriously in these conversations, you at least have to know something about these areas and these shifts. Joining in philosophic conversations requires, at least, some familiarity with the subject, history, and current state. If it’s all nonsense to you, then why do you join in? I think astrology is nonsense and I wouldn’t spend a nano-second in a conversation with one of its serious believers. Nor would I join in a conversation with historians of the , as I have no expertise or knowledge.
“There is no wholesale shift, just a continuing need for humility…”
The humility could start with recognizing that there has been a wholesale shift (you don’t have to agree with it or its implications but it did happen!). The shift is a fact. Plain and simple. You take the same view as the creationists who won’t even admit that evolution is true on many levels. .
You need to start from there at least. Otherwise you are responding to arguments that no one is making and are entirely irrelevant.
“…point of which is to put one's models of reality to a true test against reality.”
This is what I mean. You need to be able to see how such a statement indicates you have no idea what the shift really means. We do not have “models” of reality. We all interpret that same reality (facts, evidence) out of the narratives we believe in, you your scientism and me, Christianity.
There is nothing about reality that requires (although we can make the choice to) us to interpret or infer there is no God.
“Here the twentieth century’s tectonic shifts over reason come to our [the church] aid. Because there is no thought without prior commitments to axioms, no way of seeing and thinking has automatic pride of place. “
Now that is a humble understanding.
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Well, suppose we accept your shift and lack of foundation. What then? How do we judge our narratives and suppositions, and get back on solid ground? Do we go with the most appealing ones? The Harry Potter narrative is most appealing to me. I think I will go with that one. I believe that is your generaly approach, and it is intellectually vacuous, though certainly popular.
“There is nothing about reality that requires (although we can make the choice to) us to interpret or infer there is no God.”
Right- there might still be a god up there. But reality as we have fathomed it so far makes numerous crimps in the heretofore model of god. To wit.. no more prayers, no more responsibility for biology, no more responsibility for goodness or morals, no more life after death. What is left is the thinnest gruel of speculative deism, for which there still is no evidence.. it lives exclusively in the gaps of our understanding of current reality. Nothing requires it one way or the other!
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Burk,
Well, if you understood what the postmodern shift entails and as understood as Davison (and the vast majority of other philosophers) is speaking you would know it doesn’t make room for what everyone knows is a fictional account. You have the idea it means anything goes which is wrong and proves once again you speak of things you know nothing about. Again, at least try and understand what you are railing against.
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I am not the one who put up the post on the subject, posing as an authority. It would behoove you to explain what you are talking about, since I very much take away the meaning that one can under this dispensation believe anthing one wants. You and your fellows seem to believe it promotes Christianity, which amounts to the same thing as far as I can tell, perhaps vindicated via the magisterium or some similar (and wholly discreditable) mechanism. I have drawn my distinctions. Where are yours?
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Burk,
I do not pose as an authority although I have read widely in this area. Davison is an authority in the area of biochemistry and philosophy/theology. Postmodernism doesn’t promote Christianity but what it does is put everyone on and equal playing field. This is what no doubt bothers you and it well should. By the way, I am generally posting on themes and in areas where I assume the reader already has a certain level of understanding or familiarity. I’m not going to go back 50 years and bring everyone up to speed on anything I might be posting. I will readily admit my posts are not for the lay person.
Do you believe there was a shift from the modern to the postmodern in the sense Davison is speaking? If not, I can’t help you because it would be like a person (whether he agreed with the outcome or not) believing shifts or new developments within Romanticism, the Enlightenment, or Reformation had never occurred. It’s hard to talk to someone who doesn’t believe we landed on the moon. It is interesting to me that although you are sure no shift took place, you want, at the same time, for someone to explain it to you.
If you do believe there was a shift, why do you believe it took place? What caused the shift? I would think you would want to delve into that question because it goes directly to your belief system.
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You keep speaking in nebulosities. This is how it sounds to me..
Some valid critiques have been made of extreme forms of positivism and scientism.. thus Christianity is true, or at least as true as anything else we can come up with, due the attractiveness of its narrative to those already steeped in the Westerna traditions. At least some of them. QED.
Needless to say, this is rather lame as philosophy, or as thought of any kind. It by no means “puts everyone on an even playing field”. Bad science remains bad science, bad philosophy remains bad philosophy, and theology remains bad philosophy. But you seem unwilling to make the relevant distinctions, so that will be an end of it.
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Burk,
“Some valid critiques have been made of extreme forms of positivism and scientism…”
Here is the problem. On one hand you deny any shift or these critiques at all. On the other, you seem to suggest they are there. Which is it?
Further, you fall into the category of “extreme” forms of, if not positivism, at least scientism. If you truly believe some of these critiques are “valid” then why do you still hold to your scientism? You are getting ahead of yourself. Until you can address and discuss these critiques, how would moving further with distinctions within postmodernity be helpful?
Leaving that aside I will try and post some stuff in the future on what postmodernity is and the misunderstandings associated with it.
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