christian@topaz.UUCP (03/29/87)
This is a response to an article by Mike Huybensz originally entitled "Re: Calvin on the Accuracy of Scripture". I am more interested in his conclusion than his argument (which I think applies equally well against his own knowledge). It reminded me of an article I submitted a while back to talk.religion.misc (most of what Mike says reminds me of that passage). I've appended it to this article for those who don't get talk groups. Mike's conclusion: >There's no proof either way: once again, believers must resort to blind >faith, that most worthless justification for belief. How many places need >we point out the arbitrary choice of faith as sole support, before >Christians start to ask why they chose to put their faith in it? I'm not sure that the faith is totally blind, since semantics affect all that we know as much as they effect our interpretation of Scripture. Mike ends with a relevant quote: >"Do you want real TRUTH in capital letters? Then search yourself for why >you believe the things you do. Don't be afraid to analyze why your religion >gives you the high it does. Answer yourself this question: Is TRUTH important >enough for me to give up my religion if that is required? Until you answer >yes to this you are not being honest with yourself." Dave Trissel I'll answer Yes, Mike. But I think it cuts both ways and a lot depends on the point from which you start and the decisions you make allong the way. We must also answer Yes to the question of whether TRUTH is important enough to to risk commitment to relgious belief in the face of ridicule and skepticism if that is required. I suspect that behind Mr. Trissel's challenge is a self-serving notion of "TRUTH". I'm enough of a skeptic to know that playing the "Doubting Game" can give one as much of a "high" as dogmatically certain religious belief. As far as I know, no one has illustrated this more clearly than Daniel Taylor in his new book _The Myth of Certianty_. I strongly recommend this book. I can't say how much it has touched the heart of what I have been feeling for a long time about most of the religious/skeptical debate that goes on these days. If we don't get beyond this mindset in our discussions, we won't get anywhere at all with them. Here is the exerpt I promised: Among the things one should be skeptical about is skepticism itself, particularly in its common secular form as it edges toward cynicism. Skepticism is the ruling methodology of our day and has been for hundreds of years in our Western culture. Peter Elbow calls it "the doubting game" and points out that it two primary strategies are to remove the self from the evaluation process and to end up with truth by focusing on error. Among the many problems of the doubting game is that the obsession with error, like the obsession of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Puritans with evil, encourages one to see it every- where, making truth just as susceptible to destruction as error itself. The doubting game also tends to exaggerate the importance of the error-finding faculties--reason, analysis--at the expense of other faculties such as imagination, empathy, synthesis. It underestimates the extent to which reason (and the whole doubting methodology) can *produce* error as well as detect it. It can, even at its best, retard progress toward many important kinds of truth which are not compatible with the doubting game (for example, aesthetic, interpersonal, and spiritual). Perhaps most damaging of all, thorough skepticism discourages risk-taking. The person playing the doubting game is very afraid of looking foolish, of not appearing logical, rigorous, and disciplined. The obsession with error makes one fear commitment to anything that is not self-evident, or at least embraced by a large percentage of others who play the same game. And what could be more risky than to make assertions about value, about right and wrong, about God, especially if one acts on those assertions? The secular world of ideas plays the doubting game almost exclusively and is usually scornful of anyone who doesn't. Ironically, however, the church also plays this game to a great extent. The mystery of the gospel, the paradox of the incarnation, the wondrous enigma of grace are freeze-dried into a highly rationalized and/or authoritarian system of theologies, codes, rules, prescriptions, orders of service, and forms of church government. Everything is written down, everything is organized, so that all can be certain and those in error detected. I am not advocating irrationalism, obscurantism, sloppy thinking, or sappy emotionalism. I am merely suggesting that among the things one should be skeptical about in our skeptical age is the unchallenged primacy of this way of ascertaining truth. It must be balanced by other ways of knowing which encourage risk and adventure. One benefit of release from the monopoly of the doubting game is the awareness that a belief, feeling, intuition, or conviction does not have to be "defendable" to be worthwhile. Solzhenitsyn says, "Not everything has a name". Likewise, not everything is explainable. Not everything can be put in terms that allow it to be ground through the doubting-game machine. Even the concepts of "explanation", "defense", and "proof" are derived from one particular way of looking at the world which, while powerful and historically productive, has no valid claim to exclusive rule. Again, this is not an apology for anti-intellectualism or irrationalism, but a recognition that the search for truth is too important to limit us to one faculty or one methodology. The upshot of all this is that the reflective Christian should not allow his affinity for the life of the mind to blind him or her to the clear shortcomings of the secular, intellectual world, many of which are evident to those with no interest in spiritual things. Do not be intimidated into adopting uncritically a system of thought that, while tremendously useful in many contexts, is also greatly limited in many others, most especially in areas of ultimate significance. Be at least as skeptical of the world of doubting as it is of the world of faith, not out of fear for faith but out of regard for truth. Excerpted from _The Myth of Certainty: The Reflective Christian and the Risk of Commitment_, Daniel Taylor Word Books, Waco Texas 1986, pp. 133-35 Paul Dubuc "Discovering the Church is apt to be a slow procedure but it can take place if you have a free mind and no vested interest in disbelief... Flannery O'Connor
christian@topaz.UUCP (04/05/87)
[I apologize to Mike for allowing the original posting. It violated the rule against ad hominem argument, though because it didn't attack any particular person I didn't notice it. The following is the obvious reply. I promise not to allow articles of either sort in the future. --clh] Once again, Paul Dubuc has posted his exerpt from "The Myth Of Certainty." The last time was in talk.religion.misc at the beginning of this month, and I posted a response. I don't recall seeing an answer (perhaps due to net vagaries), so I think I should expand and repeat my response in this forum as well. The author of this work (Daniel Taylor), with superbly sly rhetorical skill labels skepticism "the doubting game": as if the goal of skepticism is to doubt the most or the hardest for the emotional gratification of just playing the game. Evidently this is something that appealed a great deal to Paul, since now he can dismiss me as just an addict who gets "high" on naysaying. I'm not surprised that some believers portray skeptics as mirror images of themselves playing their "believing game". They want to be able to use the fallacious argument "my belief is true because it feels good to me and that's the same standard for truth that you use." But unfortunately for their argument, it doesn't work that way. Unlike the "believing game", there is very little reward or support for skepticism. Most skeptics I've met were only dimly aware that there were others out there with similar beliefs (as I was, until age 23.) Nobody promises us rewards in Heaven. We choose to be skeptics because we cannot abide the thought of trying to make ourselves believe things when we know good reasons why they may not be true (as I did for about two years before I left the Catholic Church.) But back to Paul's exerpt. I'm going to mutillate it a bit to focus on the particularly stupid points (and to shorten things by more than half.) > Among the many problems of [skepticism] is that the obsession with error, > like the obsession of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Puritans with evil, encourages > one to see it everywhere, making truth just as susceptible to destruction > as error itself. Here we have the weary old "skepticism becomes nihilism" argument. Which essentially assumes that skeptics are so obsessed that they throw out the baby with the bathwater because the baby can't be perfectly cleaned. Now, we all know which bathwater the Christians want us to retain, right? Obviously, skeptics must somehow make do, despite the fact that there is error in everything. The simple solution is to attempt to minimize the error. > [Skepticism] also tends to exaggerate the importance of the error-finding > faculties--reason, analysis--at the expense of other faculties such as > imagination, empathy, synthesis. It underestimates the extent to which reason > (and the whole doubting methodology) can *produce* error as well as detect it. Ah, yes, the "Mr. Spock" caricature. Sorry, but I think skepticism can help assign the correct importances to our faculties. This bozo doesn't provide one word of justification for "exaggeration" and "underestimates": he just tries to slip it in past us. Now we all know which faculties the Christians want us to consider important: things like Pavlovian conditioned reflexes that make us send money, say "Amen", hate homosexuals, etc. whenever a church bell rings. > It can, even at its best, retard progress toward many important > kinds of truth which are not compatible with the doubting game > (for example, aesthetic, interpersonal, and spiritual). So can any diversion of attention or energy. I'll bet thousands of people have had their progress tremendously retarded by inopportune sneezes or Christian beliefs (for example.) > Perhaps most damaging of all, thorough skepticism discourages risk-taking. > The person playing the doubting game is very afraid of looking foolish, of > not appearing logical, rigorous, and disciplined. The obsession with error > makes one fear commitment to anything that is not self-evident, or at least > embraced by a large percentage of others who play the same game. Yow! Big lie in operation, stand back! Christians accusing skeptics of their own sins! Skepticism is one of the greatest forces opposing conformity of belief. If you don't think that's risk-taking, you've never doubted anything. Skepticism of "error" specified by religions allows experimentation undreamed of or shunned by believers. > And what could be more risky than to make assertions about value, about right > and wrong, about God, especially if one acts on those assertions? Perhaps Christians think it risky to repeat the canned, predigested beliefs prepackaged in the Bible. But it seems much more adventurous to me to formulate one's one opinions, especially on matters that (Christians presume) are as important as these. > I am not advocating irrationalism, obscurantism, sloppy thinking, or > sappy emotionalism... No, but he's providing a wonderful example. > ... I am merely suggesting that among the things one should be skeptical > about in our skeptical age is the unchallenged primacy of this way of > ascertaining truth. It must be balanced by other ways of knowing which > encourage risk and adventure. Such as FAITH? Go ahead, don't be shy. Gosh, it's so risky and adventurous believing the same thing as the rest of the herd! (I'm reminded of the Python sketch where the accountant wants to become a lion tamer-- until John Cleese roars at him. :-) > One benefit of release from the monopoly of the doubting game is the > awareness that a belief, feeling, intuition, or conviction does not have to > be "defendable" to be worthwhile... Again, this is not an apology for > anti-intellectualism or irrationalism, but a recognition that the search for > truth is too important to limit us to one faculty or one methodology. Yes, let's hear it for thinking with your gonads! Truth through testosterone! (Excuse me please, female readers.) When one embraces skepticism, the rest of the brain is not turned off. Personally, I use skepticism as a filter, for eliminating unreliable products of the rest of the brain. Such as the conditioned reflexes drilled into me as a young Catholic. -- "To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true." Bertrand Russell in "The Prospects of Industrial Civilization". -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh