April 13, 2011

The goal of The Joy of Secularism is, in one sense, entirely commendable from a religious point of view. The authors wish to explore whether there is any such thing as natural goodness, natural wonder, natural joy. Moreover, rather than attacking religion, as the more vociferous of today's atheists like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris et al, the atheists included in The Joy of Secularism tip their collective hats to the good that they acknowledge religion provides. They want to ask the question: "can the world perceived as entirely secular, explicable exclusively in naturalist terms…provide the kind of 'fullness,' the kinds of moral, aesthetic, and spiritual satisfactions that have traditionally been linked exclusively to religion?"

In other words, The Joy of Secularism attempts to shift the Secularist argument from the negative to the positive. In doing so, it marks a significant step forward in the great debate between Christianity and its self-avowed antithesis, Secularism.

Over the last decade or so, Secularists have focused exclusively on painting both religion and the world itself in black. Religion, Dawkins and his ilk rail, is the cause of all the world's miseries, and it must be eliminated as a cancer or a virus. But in order to counteract the Judeo-Christian understanding of the cosmos as a good, harmonious, intricately and purposely designed creation, the international atheist club has seen fit to cast the cosmos itself in the bleakest terms as a meaningless, cold, indifferent purposeless swirl—the great opposite of the Christian cosmos. In Dawkins' famous words, "nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous—indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose." Or to quote atheist Steven Weinberg's nihilistic sigh about the essential meaninglessness of the cosmos, "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless."

Against the usual tack, the various authors in The Joy of Secularism hope to make the case for what they call Secular Enchantment, a view that sees nature as overflowing with a "superabundance of meaning," and hence a source of natural joy and wonder, and affirms that religion has indeed provided things that are necessary and good and so offers a commendable template for what a positive Secularism must also provide.

That, my friends, is a BIG shift. But why is it, as I hint above, a welcome shift for Christians in the Religion-Secularism debate? That's a bit complicated, so I beg the reader's careful attention.

Here's the most important point, and the one that is least understood. Secularism ended up with a meaningless, cold, disenchanted cosmos precisely because modern Secularism's originators in the 17th century purposely designed it that way to eliminate God. They understood a fundamental Christian principle that grace builds upon nature, the supernatural on the natural, so they set about kicking the natural foundation out from under the supernatural.

They argued for a thoroughgoing materialism, where everything was the result of the purposeless swirl of brute atomic matter. That eliminated the need for a Creator. Further, in the materialist cosmos, matter is the only reality. That eliminated the existence of God, angels, and immaterial human souls. That bleak materialism also defines nature as a great, grey mechanism, governed by blind laws, clanking along endlessly. That eliminated both free will and the possibility of the miraculous. Finally, for materialism, no matter how noble, wonderful, beautiful, or good anything appears to be, it must be reduced to brute, dead, purposeless matter. That eliminated any notion of real beauty, moral or intellectual purpose, goodness, and intrinsic meaning. These came to be understood as merely subjective projections of foolish human beings upon an indifferent, meaningless cosmos.

That is the disenchanted cosmos of materialism. Disenchantment wasn't caused by science; it was caused by a deformed materialistic view of science. The authors of The Joy of Secularism wish to re-enchant nature, to recover all that was lost by modern Secular materialism's disenchantment—but without the God part.

And that is good news for religion. First of all, it will bring like-minded Secularists to stop blinding themselves through materialist disenchantment. Materialist reductionism systematically distorts reality; it blocks our natural recognition of the intrinsic beauty and goodness of creation; it blunts our natural wonder at what is naturally wonderful. To take off the dark glasses of anti-theistic materialism, and open oneself up to the full glory and superabundant meaningfulness of nature as real, means to open oneself up to God. In St. Paul's words, "what can be known about God" is actually plain to all who have eyes to see (i.e., those who have eyes that are not distorted by ideological spectacles). "Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made." The only way to avoid this clear and natural perception was to distort one's perception of reality through a materialist world-view. The way back to sight-fullness is to rip off the ideological spectacles and open oneself up to the full splendor of creation. But that is to shed the defensive materialist stance, and open oneself up to God. Know it or not the authors of The Joy of Secularism will end up accepting at least some kind of natural theism. Better that, than Dawkin's acidic and militant atheism.

Second, in accepting the positive aspects of religion as positive, instead of portraying religion as entirely negative, Secularists will be forced to explore religion on far friendlier terms. And then something even more surprising might happen. If Christianity does in fact do all these good things that they, even as Secularists, can recognize and want to incorporate—for example, providing a solid foundation for ethics, giving a sense of real community, fostering help of the downtrodden, creating great art and music, offering a larger purpose than mere self-interest—then perhaps, just perhaps, there are good things that Christianity has that are yet to be discovered by the honest Secularist. At what point will that Secularist be forced to say to himself, "Well, if Christianity has all these good things I want to imitate, and I've found even more as I keep exploring it, then why am I spending my time merely imitating something. What keeps me from simply being the thing I'm imitating?"

Third and related, once the positive aspects of religion are more fully embraced, the negative aspects of Secularism will be more honestly admitted. If Secularism is the cause of disenchantment, of a blackened cosmos, then why is it a good thing? Part of this honest self-assessment already appears in The Joy of Secularism. Militant atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens, in their desire to portray Christianity as the source of all evil, have been stupidly adamant about denying the evil caused by militant Secularists. But hear these refreshing words from the editor, George Levine: "Nobody can sanely assume that secular societies are, in contrast [to religious societies], always cozy and harmonious (a little Stalinism, a little Hitlerism, a little Maoism will blast that absurd notion out of the water)…" That is a big admission, one that strikes at the heart of the ideological Secularists' view that religion is the sole source of historical evil, and that Secularism will lead us unambiguously to a shining utopia.

So we return to their question: "Can the world perceived as entirely secular, explicable exclusively in naturalist terms…provide the kind of 'fullness,' the kinds of moral, aesthetic, and spiritual satisfactions that have traditionally been linked exclusively to religion?" The answer is: "Yes, but not without secularism being transformed into religion."

Responses to Bye Bye Inflationary Theory:

I liked the simplicity of your last phrase: "some people will believe in anything as long as it isn't God." These exercises of intellectual superiority are such vain waste of resources. They only prove that God gave people brains but they use it in such an appalling way. Scientists should be ashamed of their failure to solve the most important problems of our times... I look at their incapacity to prevent or solve disasters such as the ones happening in Japan. With brains that can figure out what happened billions of years ago... when it comes to the present they are absolutely useless. People who speculate about the big bang and other theories for the Universe, past and future, should be reclassified for their true nature: these are not scientists, these are prophets. This is not science, this is religion. Once we do that, we should not allowed our kids to be taught their religious nonsense in school. The more I read about these theories the more I love the wisdom of the illiterate old woman: 'Of course I know God exists... I talk to Him every morning...' - J.S.

Funny thing about science. It keeps changing. It keeps modifying it's view of the universe to accomodate new observational data. This upsets some people who want their view of the universe tied up in a nice neat package, unchanging, and unchangable. My view of science and research? I can't say it better than John Denver did, in his song "Calypso". To sail on a dream on a crystal clear ocean Toride on the crest of the wild raging storm To work in the service of life and the living In search of the answers to questions unknown To be part of the movement and part of the growing Part of beginning to understand As St. Paul said, "The universe is but a thought of God". Science is simply our way of trying to understand that thought. The ideat that all of the universe as it currently exists, including life, intelligence and everything, is potential deep within the structure, the design if you will, of matter, energy, time, and space just fills me with awe. God didn't just wave his arm and create the world as it is, he is much more subtle than that. He created a (many?) universe that has everything built into its essence. And trying to figure out how He did it is the greatest adventure of the human race. Sincerely, - H.M.

Dear Mr. Wiker Lets accept that the universe is finely tuned AND that it is due to a super intellect (SI). What does that tell us about that intellect. We have accepted it is intelligent and as the maker of our universe it must having existed somewhere other (SO) in the beginning. Was our universe's maker a solitary being or just one of many occupants of the SO Could it be a SO version of a playful child, a student doing their version of a science project a middle aged man playing with a mega train set or worse the SO's mad scientist. I don't know and to argue anything else is to "believe in anything and call it God" - K.B.