For God’s Sake
Reg Naulty is engaged by a new book on theism and atheism
It is surprising what a male enterprise the current debate between theism and atheism is. The atheists, Jack Smart, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, AC Grayling, attract as opponents male heavyweights like John Haldane, Antony Flew, David Bentley Hart, and Deepak Chopra. As in other male preserves, the debate takes on a distantly grim aspect, so that it resembles an intellectual version of the gunfight at the ‘OK Corral’.
For God’s Sake is also a debate between theism and atheism, but two of the debaters are women, so it is interesting to see whether they do it differently. It turns out that they would both have done pretty well at the OK Corral. Jane Caro, an atheist and one of the contributors to the book, in reply to the Christian debater who is adamant that we need to be saved from our sinfulness, argues that this is an instance of the familiar advertising dodge of persuading people of a problem they didn’t know they had, then persuading them that only your brand will fix it. Rachel Woodlock, a Muslim, in reply to the claim that Jesus died for our sins, believes that this is like trying Adolf Hitler for crimes against humanity and then sentencing Mother Theresa instead.
Jane Caro sounds the refrain common to all the atheists in this debate: ‘examine all theories and beliefs critically and accept only those that live up to the test of evidence and reason’. For God’s Sake does not raise the crucial question: ‘What counts as evidence?’ In the case of religious experience, there is a difference between the theist and atheist about this. It is the numinous qualities of the experience, usually its majesty and fascination, which induce the theist to spontaneously ascribe to it an otherworldly origin.
Atheists are mostly unimpressed. After all, all kinds of peculiar things go on in people’s heads. Atheists think, not unreasonably, that the experience needs some further corroboration. There is a wide range of religious experience and, for some of them, the people who have them seek corroboration with greater zeal than even the most stringent sceptic. The reason is simple: they are afraid they are going out of their minds. Muhammad is a case in point. After receiving his first revelations, Muhammad thought he was one possessed, a type he had seen on his journeys through Arabia. So low was Muhammad’s opinion of those people, that he ran to a cliff in order to commit suicide at once. But on his way he saw a figure astride the horizon, who hailed him as a messenger of God. That gave him the reassurance he needed.
It would probably not reassure an atheist. The vision is, presumably, something going on in Muhammad’s own mind. Is there anything that can be publicly inspected in religious experience? Sometimes there is. Consider the following words from George Fox (1624-1691):
After this I passed to Cambridge that evening, and when I came into the town it was all in uproar, hearing of my coming, and the scholars were up, and were exceeding rude. But I kept on my horse back and rid through them in the Lord’s power. ‘Oh!’ said they, ‘he shines, he glistens.’
(Douglas Steere, Quaker Spirituality)
That is transfiguration. Of course, transfiguration is not evidence that a personal, spiritual power is the cause of the universe. For that, an argument with cosmic reach is required; for example, that the orderliness of the universe implies a designer, though this argument is not offered in the book.
People who have read previous debates will still benefit from this one. Rachel Woodlock does well on the Sufi stream of Islam, and it becomes clear that it provides a bridge to the mystical wing of other religions. In contrast to such universalism, the picture of Christianity given by Simon Smart emphasizes its particularity, though he might not consider that a defect. Anthony Loewenstein presents a soulful version of atheism. In contrast, Jane Caro, the other atheist, always comes out fighting. Meeting someone like the numinous saint Seraphim might convert her to theism, though I wouldn’t bet on it.
The debate obviously arouses deep emotions in the four writers, but their civility never wavers.
For God’s Sake, by Jane Caro, Antony Loewenstein, Simon Smart, Rachel Woodlock. Macmillan Australia. 2013. £12.73 ebook.
