"Ditchkins! You Ignorant Twit!"

[Jim__]

The title line comes from the THE INTERNET REVIEW OF BOOKS in its review of Terry Eagleton's book, REASON, FAITH, AND REVOLUTION: Reflections on the God Debate. The review takes a somewhat different view of Hitchens and Dawkins books on religion than we normally see in this forum. Most of the reviews describe the book as hysterically funny, but I didn't include any of that in my excerpts. I thought people might be interested. I couldn't resist the title from the IRB review, but I took the excerpts from the review in Salon:

...

But Eagleton, a professor of English literature and cultural theory who divides his time between the University of Lancaster and the National University of Ireland, is determined not to commit the same elementary errors he ascribes to such foes as biologist Richard Dawkins and political journalist Christopher Hitchens. (Those two, collectively dubbed "Ditchkins" by Eagleton, are the self-appointed leaders of public atheism and the authors of bestselling books on the subject, Dawkins' "The God Delusion" and Hitchens' "God Is Not Great.") Atheists of the Ditchkins persuasion have raised valid points about the sordid social and political history of religion, with which Eagleton largely agrees. Yet their arguments are fatally undermined by their own unacknowledged dogmas and doctrines, he goes on to say, and they completely fail to understand Christian faith (or any other kind) except in its stupidest and most literal-minded form.

...

It's only a slight simplification to say that in this compact little tome, which runs less than 200 pages and is largely conversational in tone, Eagleton hopes to save Christianity from the Christians and Marxism from the Marxists. Yet the book's easy-breezy, wisecracking character is deceptive; I had to read it through twice before concluding that it's one of the most fascinating, most original and prickliest works of philosophy to emerge from the post-9/11 era.

...

Much of the anti-religious fervor of the Ditchkins school, Eagleton says, derives from a high-Victorian idealism, in which humankind rides the upward-bound escalator of progress and civilization, held back only by the forces of unreason and irrationality. Its adherents see an absolute dichotomy between faith and reason, one that lacks any rigorous philosophical underpinning or an understanding of the inescapable relationship between the two. Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Fichte have all observed in different ways that unspoken assumptions about the world around us (that is, faith) are the precondition of all knowledge in the first place. As for the Enlightenment narrative of steady upward progress from superstition to reason, Eagleton is certainly not arguing that the first is superior to the second. He is suggesting, rather, that the escalator can go up and down at the same time.

...

Such a figure, Eagleton suggests, represents "the truth of history," and those who deny it "are likely to adopt some bright-eyed superstition such as the dream of untrammeled human progress," a naive Enlightenment ideal expressed in our time by the likes of Ditchkins. I'm sure Eagleton would be delighted to imagine a resurgent 21st-century combination of democratic Marxism and left-wing Christianity, but he wishes to appear hard-headed and never quite comes out and says that such a thing might be possible. (One could argue that precisely that combination, which was never quite extinguished in Latin America, has made an unexpected comeback in the last few years.)

...

[darkstar3]

1. *Yawn*

So a guy coins a new word (and a stupid one at that) and suddenly he has the right to an audience as he spews the same old shit that people have been trying to say about Dawkins and Hitchens for ten years?

:boring:

[kwassa]

2. Right to an audience?

No one has that. Each gets the audience that is interested in what they have to say, no more, no less.

That's what happens in a country with free speech, like us.

[Jim__]

3. Well, of course, I can't speak to whether or not Terry Eagleton has earned an audience.

However, given his list of publications, it's somewhat difficult to conclude that he doesn't have one. From wikipedia:

Publications:

The New Left Church (1966)
Shakespeare and Society
Exiles And Émigrés: Studies in Modern Literature (1970)
The Body as Language : outline of a new left theology (1970)
Criticism & Ideology (1976)
Marxism and Literary Criticism (1976)
Walter Benjamin, or Towards a Revolutionary Criticism (1981)
The Rape of Clarissa: Writing, Sexuality, and Class Struggle in Samuel Richardson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982
Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983
The Function of Criticism (1984)
Saint Oscar (a play about Oscar Wilde)
Saints and Scholars (a novel, 1987)
Raymond Williams: Critical Perspectives (editor) Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989.
The Significance of Theory (1989)
The Ideology of the Aesthetic (1990)
Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990
Ideology: An Introduction (1991/2007)
Wittgenstein: The Terry Eagleton Script, The Derek Jarman Film (1993)
Literary Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996
The Illusions of Postmodernism (1996)
"Heathcliff and the Great Hunger" (1996)
"Crazy John and the Bishop and Other Essays on Irish Culture" (1998)
The Idea of Culture (2000)
The Gatekeeper: A Memoir (2001)
The Truth about the Irish (2001)
Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic (2002)
After Theory (2003)
The English Novel: An Introduction (2004)
Holy Terror (2005)
The Meaning of Life (2007)
How to Read a Poem (2007)
Trouble with Strangers: A Study of Ethics (2008)
Literary Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008
Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (2009)

As to spewing the same old shit, I shall again refer to the review in Salon:

It's only a slight simplification to say that in this compact little tome, which runs less than 200 pages and is largely conversational in tone, Eagleton hopes to save Christianity from the Christians and Marxism from the Marxists. Yet the book's easy-breezy, wisecracking character is deceptive; I had to read it through twice before concluding that it's one of the most fascinating, most original and prickliest works of philosophy to emerge from the post-9/11 era.

[onager]

5. A Marxist who owns 3 houses?

:rofl:

Terry Eagleton, the John McCain of Marxist literary critics. From Wikipedia:

William Deresiewicz wrote of Eagleton's book After Theory, as follows: "Is it that hard to explain what Eagleton's up to? The prolificness, the self-plagiarism, the snappy, highly consumable prose and, of course, the sales figures: Eagleton wishes for capitalism's demise, but as long as it's here, he plans to do as well as he can out of it.

"Someone who owns three homes shouldn't be preaching self-sacrifice, and someone whose careerism at Oxbridge was legendary shouldn't be telling interviewers of his longstanding regret at having turned down a job at the Open University."

[Jim__]

7. Wow! What an insightful book review!

Of course, that's not the book we're discussing, is it? It's also not really a review of a book.

But, if we take the full final paragraph of the review that those excerpts are taken from, we do get a line about the actual book:

But then, I'm an American, and I would say these things (or maybe it's just that I'm better able to notice them). And in any case, I'm probably being overingenious. After all, is it that hard to explain what Eagleton's up to? The prolificness, the self-plagiarism, the snappy, highly consumable prose and, of course, the sales figures: Eagleton wishes for capitalism's demise, but as long as it's here, he plans to do as well as he can out of it. Someone who owns three homes shouldn't be preaching self-sacrifice, and someone whose careerism at Oxbridge was legendary shouldn't be telling interviewers of his longstanding regret at having turned down a job at the Open University. But then, Eagleton is a past master at having it both ways. After Theory contains some important and timely ideas about the imaginative failures of the left, the moral shape of a just society and much else--it's just too bad they come from so dubious a source. But if the book sells as well as the one its title so deceptively evokes, at least he'll be able to buy himself another few houses.

So, it seems the criticism you're so excited about is of the person, not really of his book. I wonder why you didn't quote the full paragraph.

And, of course, there are other reviews of that book out there. From Amazon:

From Publishers Weekly:

The author of the seminal cultural studies primer Literary Theory now levels an equally trenchant critique at the field in this brilliant and provocative reassessment. Writing in a valedictory mood, Eagleton traces the rise of cultural theory through its golden age (c. 1965-80), and bemoans its decline into a shallow, depoliticized preoccupation with sex and pop-culture ephemera. As grad students churn out "reverential essays on Friends," latter-day cultural theorists espouse a "dim-witted" postmodernism that dismisses as hegemonic claptrap all talk of common values, objective truth and coherent historical narratives; they have thereby, he contends, turned away from the great socialist project of collective action in support of universal human liberation, and aligned themselves with the nihilistic thrust of a capitalism they pretend to oppose. Alongside Eagleton's indictment of the sorry state of cultural studies is a ringing defense of its potential to address grander subjects than The Matrix or nipple piercing, which he demonstrates by weaving in deft and illuminating commentaries on such topics as Aristotle's ethics, the tension between law and morality in St. Paul and the link between the body and social justice in Lear. The book stands as both rebuke and example to the kind of academic writer who deploys turgid abstractions to flesh out meager ideas; virtually every paragraph crackles with fresh and compelling insights, conveyed in a style that's intellectually sophisticated yet lucid, funny and down to earth. In rescuing cultural studies from some of its less thoughtful practitioners, Eagleton confirms its continuing importance to our understanding of the world.

From Booklist:


Prolific and influential British cultural theorist Eagleton begins his newest treatise, a marvel of speedway wit, vivifying thinking, and humanitarian concerns, by assessing the direction criticism has taken in the wake of such intellectual giants as Derrida, Foucault, and Barthes. His take on academic concerns is acute and deliciously ironic, but he soon turns to the conundrums of everyday life in the global village, thus marking the populist path he believes cultural theory itself must follow. Eagleton defines theory as nothing less than "the taxing business of trying to grasp what is actually going on," then performs this invaluable feat by tackling such complex matters as our vision of the "good life," the specter of poverty, and the nature of morality. Along the way he cogently tracks the failure of socialism, the coalescence of revolutionary nationalism, and the concurrent rise of unfettered capitalism and violent forms of fundamentalism. Scathingly critical of America's current administration and passionate in his advocacy of knowledge and rational and independent thought, Eagleton is a welcome breath of fresh air in stifling times.

But, of course, all this has nothing to do with what we're discussing.

[onager]

33. We're discussing Eagleton.

Nice try at drowning the criticism with gobbledy-gook, though.

[trotsky]

18. Consistency and integrity don't matter to the New Theists.

Like the OP, it's all about saying ANYTHING other than addressing the actual issue: the (non-)existence of their god.

[darkstar3]

26. Your point?

Ann Coulter has a ton of books and an audience too, but that doesn't mean that her shit has any place in civilized society.

To put it another way, "Excuse me, um, you stepped in something, and then dragged it aaaaaaallllll the way in here for us to smell."

It is the same old shit. Eagleton's argument boils down to two points:
1. Dawkins and Hitchens DO have a belief system.
2. Dawkins and Hitchens are too controversial to be effective.

(For the record, both of these arguments have always been and will always be attempts at ad hom.)

This is the exact same shit that anti-Dawkins posters in this forum, including you, have been spouting for at least five years. It is entirely un-original and boring, and the only conclusion I can draw about the Salon reviewer above is that he has never been exposed to the world of vehement religious debate.

[Iggo]

49. on second thought...

:hi:

[edhopper]

4. Strawman arguments

misstating and simplifying opponents arguments.
Atheist of Ditchkins persuasion have actually raised valid points that strike at the very heart of religion and the concept of God.

[Jim__]

6. Which of Eagleton's arguments are strawman arguments?

Please, be specific.

[ZombieHorde]

8. Have Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens actually appointed themselves

"leaders of public atheism," or is the author lying?

[Deep13]

10. They appointed themselves authors of their books.

The reading public appointed them best-sellers.

[Jim__]

14. Which author are you talking about?

That statement is an unquoted part of the review. I took it to be the opinion of the reviewer. I'm not sure that Eagleton ever said that.

[ZombieHorde]

19. Wait, I am confused. Did you post your opinion in the gray quote box? nt

[Jim__]

21. Do you mean the box following: "...but I took the excerpts from the review in Salon: " - n/t

[ZombieHorde]

22. The box from which I originally quoted is the box I mean. Then you wrote...

"That statement is an unquoted part of the review. I took it to be the opinion of the reviewer. I'm not sure that Eagleton ever said that."

And now I am confused.

Who is the author of of this these words, "Those two, collectively dubbed "Ditchkins" by Eagleton, are the self-appointed leaders of public atheism"?

[Jim__]

24. It's from the book review in Salon.

And, the reviewer seemed pretty consistent in putting quotes around actual quotations from the book. So, I assume that is the reviewer's statement.

[ZombieHorde]

39. Oh, the box is quoting someone who was reviewing another person's writings.

This seems obvious to me now, I don't know why I was so slow to grasp this concept. Thank you for your patience.

[Jim__]

40. No problem. - n/t

[Sal316]

9. I see the anti-theist response here...

...is ad hom, ad hom, ad hom.

Not discussing the book, but attacking the author.

Talk about *yawn*

[Jim__]

12. Yes. Unfortuantely, it's all quite predictable - n/t

[trotsky]

16. Which is why you posted an 8-month-old book review, isn't it?

To stir shit up?

Duh.

[trotsky]

17. Considering Eagleton's argument consists of...

morphing names of distinct individuals in order to dehumanize them and distort/nullify their arguments, I'd say the response is rather justified. Maybe when you theists can come back with something resembling reasoning, it could be interesting. But then, who am I to point this out to the king of ad homs?

[darkstar3]

27. That's rich.

You're claiming ad hom? :rofl:

Anyway, you might check the thread again, I actually DID address Eagleton's book. Just because I thought it was bullshit doesn't mean I'm using an ad hom argument.

[Deep13]

11. None of this proves that there is or even might be a god.

Until that is demonstrated, nothing else one can say about what religions "really" mean matters at all.

[Jim__]

13. That's not true.

Whether or not there is a god is not necessarily the determinant of the importance of religion. That is implicit in this short paragraph in the review:

I'm not sure there's a human being on earth, Terry Eagleton's family members included, who will agree with everything in "Reason, Faith, and Revolution" -- Eagleton seems delighted with the idea that he will outrage both the secular left and the religious right -- but it repeatedly challenges us to reconsider terms and ideas most of us take for granted most of the time. Is the apparent opposition between faith and reason inherent, or an ideological artifact? How is Western capitalism, agnostic and relativistic down to its roots, to confront a "full-blooded 'metaphysical' foe" (Islamic fundamentalism) that has no problem believing in absolute truth? Whether or not you like his answers, Eagleton approaches all such questions with an open and questioning mind.

Every known group of humans has had religion within the group. We have to wonder if there we non-surviving groups that did not have religion; and if the lack of religion played any role in their demise. No one knows the answer to that; and it is a quite important question.

[Deep13]

15. I'm sorry, but it is.

If negative, then all religious beliefs everywhere are invalid. Are we supposed to make ourselves believe in god even though we know it's false?

Right now the least religious and least dogmatic societies are doing the best. The Renaissance in the West corresponds to a reduction in the hold of religion over society. I don't mean that they became atheistic societies, but they were more materialist and less fundamental than they had been. The prevalence of religion can be explained in terms of the workings of human thinking which evolved for survival advantage and not necessarily to know the truth about everything. There is no basis to infer that belief aids the survival of society. And "no one knows" gets you to zero, not even odds.

[Jim__]

23. "... The prevalence of religion can be explained in terms of ..."

The prevalence of religion can be "explained" in lots of ways. But no one knows what actually explains it. And nothing either the reviewer, Terry Eagleton, or I said, had anything to do with knowing "the truth about everything."

Right now the least religious and least dogmatic societies are doing the best.

Really? Who determines, and how do they determine, which societies are doing the best? Does this determination factor in likelihood of surviving the next thousand years? And if so, how do they factor that in?

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. "Eagleton sees Jesus as the divine presence of God on earth"

...

But then Eagleton presents a thesis that God is “not a possible object of cognition,”...

So we don't know what God really is, but we do know that a particular person was really God on earth? This sounds like an extended exercise in wishful thinking. Eagleton is saying "I have know idea what 'God' is like, and won't ever have an idea, but I hope that it would be like the story of Jesus".

...and “that faith is for most part performative rather than propositional.”

Does that mean that we prove God exists by acting in love and compassion, justice and mercy? The issue is further dissected when the author discusses “knowledge” and “belief,” and suggests the “reduction of belief to positive knowledge” destroys the truths to be found in faith.

If the reviewer thinks that love or compassion could 'prove' God exists, then he needs to consult a dictionary. I've give Eagleton the benefit of the doubt, and assume he never even hinted at such a stupid idea.

[Jim__]

25. You're quoting from the Internet Review.

I noted in the OP that I only used that for the title - obviously echoing the old, "Jane, you ignorant slut." I believe the Internet reviews are submitted by the general public. The reviewer in Salon is a professional and I would expect his review to be more accurate.

[darkstar3]

28. HOLD it.

You posted an 8-month-old review here in an attempt to get people talking about Eagleton's book, and now you only want to read opinions from professional critics??

Talk about your ad hom arguments...somebody says something you don't like and suddenly they're not "professional" enough for you. :eyes:

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. Nah, it's just an admission of flamebait

They're saying they just wanted the title to annoy people, and didn't want to actually have to defend it.

[trotsky]

31. BINGO! n/t

[darkstar3]

35. Par for the course...n/t

[Jim__]

37. Flamebait?

Jane, you ignorant slut was always uttered in the kindest sense possible.

[muriel_volestrangler]

45. Yes, 'flamebait', because you've said you don't want to talk about that review

but you bring it up anyway, just to get the thread title you wanted to attract controversy.

[Jim__]

36. "If the reviewer thinks that love or compassion could 'prove' God exists ..."

I was responding to a remark about the reviewer. Try to keep up.

[darkstar3]

38. No you weren't,

you were attempting to discredit the reviewer by stating that they weren't credible, or professional enough.

Don't piss on my shoe and tell me it's raining.

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. OK, from the Salon review:

Eagleton's terminology is deliberately provocative, and some Christians won't find his account of their beliefs, colored as it clearly is by the Catholic "liberation theology" of his youth, to be mainstream at all. Still, he is incontestably correct about two things: There is a long Judeo-Christian theological tradition that bears no resemblance to the caricature of religious faith found in Ditchkins, and atheists tend to take the most degraded and superstitious forms of religion as representative. It's a little like judging the entire institution of heterosexual marriage on the basis of Eliot Spitzer's conduct as a husband.

What follows is a good description of most of Christianity. Bear in mind what the pope would say about the following, or an average minister:

Many secular intellectuals, for instance, have claimed as Christian doctrine "the idea that God is some kind of superentity outside the universe, that he created the world rather as a carpenter might create a stool; that faith in this God means above all subscribing to the proposition that he exists; that there is a real me inside me called the soul, which a wrathful God may consign to hell if I am not egregiously well-behaved; that our utter dependency on this deity is what stops us thinking and acting for ourselves; that this God cares deeply about whether we are sinful or not, because if we are then he demands to be placated."

As Eagleton knows, some Christian believers, especially in the various strains of fundamentalism, would subscribe to most if not all of those propositions.

Most Christian believers subscribe to:
God is some kind of superentity outside the universe
he created the worlduniverse
faith in this God means above all subscribing to the proposition that he exists
there is a real me inside me called the soul
this God cares deeply about whether we are sinful or not

And many also believe in hell.

But he's right that from the perspective of the past several centuries' worth of mainline Protestant and Catholic theology, none of those statements is true.

Mainline Protestant and Catholic theology also subscribe to those listed (with the 'hell' one being a comon exception). Theat's why you hear them preached every week in mainline churches. The rest of the list the reviewer gave is accepted by quite a few as well (though "our utter dependency on this deity is what stops us thinking and acting for ourselves" is strangely worded; I'd say a typical view is more like "our utter dependency on this deity is what stops us deciding on our own morality, though we can choose to disobey God"). The reviewer, and, from the tone of his piece, Eagleton as well, have confused 'mainline' with 'controversial' or 'notorious'.

In those terms, they range from crude distortions to outright idolatry. Aquinas would tell you that God is not an entity of any classifiable or verifiable kind and most certainly is not a mega-manufacturer who plotted out the universe on some celestial computer screen.

What, the Aquinas that came up with several 'proofs' of the existence of God? In which he classified God as the 'first mover', the 'greatest being' and so on? Since Aquinas said God is the 'First Cause', then he did classify him as a 'mega-manufacturer'. None of what the reviewer listed (as, I presume, a quote from Eagleton) is anywhere near 'idolatry'. It's not associating God with any object in the physical world.

Rather, "God is what sustains all things in being by his love, and ... is the reason why there is something instead of nothing, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever."

Yes, Aquinas and other mainline theologians may say this; but that doesn't mean that's the limit of what they claim. They go beyond these deistic claims, to talking about Jesus. Saying Jesus existed, and was the Messiah, may be 'idolatrous' to Eagleton, but it's a fundamental part of mainline Christianity. To pretend that it isn't is absurd.

But there are questions science cannot properly ask, let alone answer, questions about "why there is anything in the first place, or why what we do have is actually intelligible to us." That is where theology begins.

Why are those questions science cannot properly ask? The second in particular - the question of consciousness - is highly investigatable. And the first doesn't belong to just 'theology', but to philosophy. Saying it is a theological question is answering it before it's been considered.

The creedal declaration "I believe in God" is a statement of action and will; it is performative rather than assertive. It is not equivalent to the claim that God exists (although Christians believe that too). It possesses the kind of certainty that belongs to such wistful sentences as "I love you" or "I believe the Mets are the best team in baseball." It clearly lacks the empirical certainty of the sentence "I believe this maple tree will turn red in October."

How can you 'believe' in something, with any definition of 'believe', unless you think it exists? When you say "I love you", you have to think that the 'you' exists. And the same goes for the Mets. At least he's admitted that Christians believe God exists now, thus contradicting his claim that that is a 'crude distortion' of mainline Christian belief.

You can almost hear the steel chairs creaking as the last secular liberals rise to depart when Eagleton declares where his true disagreement with Richard Dawkins lies, which does not directly concern the existence of God or the role of science. "The difference between Ditchkins and radicals like myself," he writes, "hinges on whether it is true that the ultimate signifier of the human condition is the tortured and murdered body of a political criminal, and what the implications of this are for living."

Hmm, what was that word earlier? Ah yes, 'idolatry'. Eagleton thinks that the ultimate signifier for humanity is the story of one man? That's loading so much on to that one person, Eagleton better think he's a god. And it's a pisser for all the humans who lived before Jesus, whom Eagleton condemns to an existence without proper meaning. I'm not surprised that secular liberals give up on Eagleton at that point. It seems rather fundamentalist - that the story of Jesus has to be more important than any known history, any other story, or anyone's personal experience.

And after that, the review seems to degenerate into a moan that Dawkins and Hitchens are too optimistic about humans (weird, I always saw Hitchens as a cynical bastard), and that humanism is acceptable if it acknowledges that humans will always have major flaws and behave badly to each other. Oh well, so much for "God is what sustains all things in being by his love". Looks like God doesn't have that much influence after all.

[trotsky]

32. Every once in a while there is a post that stands out as pure DU gold.

This is such a post. Nicely done. :thumbsup:

[Jim__]

34. Yes, from the Salon review.

Many secular intellectuals, for instance, have claimed as Christian doctrine "the idea that God is some kind of superentity outside the universe, that he created the world rather as a carpenter might create a stool; that faith in this God means above all subscribing to the proposition that he exists; that there is a real me inside me called the soul, which a wrathful God may consign to hell if I am not egregiously well-behaved; that our utter dependency on this deity is what stops us thinking and acting for ourselves; that this God cares deeply about whether we are sinful or not, because if we are then he demands to be placated."

As Eagleton knows, some Christian believers, especially in the various strains of fundamentalism, would subscribe to most if not all of those propositions.

...

But he's right that from the perspective of the past several centuries' worth of mainline Protestant and Catholic theology, none of those statements is true.

Are you familiar with the last several centuries' worth of mainline Protestant and Catholic theology? If not, what is your basis for claiming that the author is wrong?

Your statement: Theat's why you hear them preached every week in mainline churches. The rest of the list the reviewer gave is accepted by quite a few as well (though "our utter dependency on this deity is what stops us thinking and acting for ourselves" is strangely worded; I'd say a typical view is more like "our utter dependency on this deity is what stops us deciding on our own morality, though we can choose to disobey God"). The reviewer, and, from the tone of his piece, Eagleton as well, have confused 'mainline' with 'controversial' or 'notorious'. does not constitute an argument, but rather an opinion. And given that you begin by what's preached every week in mainline churches, an opinion that is a rather grandiose, unsupported generalization.

In those terms, they range from crude distortions to outright idolatry. Aquinas would tell you that God is not an entity of any classifiable or verifiable kind and most certainly is not a mega-manufacturer who plotted out the universe on some celestial computer screen.

What, the Aquinas that came up with several 'proofs' of the existence of God? In which he classified God as the 'first mover', the 'greatest being' and so on? Since Aquinas said God is the 'First Cause', then he did classify him as a 'mega-manufacturer'. None of what the reviewer listed (as, I presume, a quote from Eagleton) is anywhere near 'idolatry'. It's not associating God with any object in the physical world.

Wow. Well, Eagleton grew up an Irish Catholic but I'm not sure whether or not had a Catholic education. But if he did, he may well have gotten his distorted view of the Catholic theologian, Thomas Aquinas, from his Catholic teachers. Here's what the people at the Catholic Education Resource Center think Aquinas wrote about the creation:

Aquinas saw no contradiction in the notion of an eternal created universe. He thought that it was a matter of biblical revelation that the world is not eternal. He also thought that reason alone could not conclude whether the world had a temporal beginning. But even if the universe were not to have had a temporal beginning, it still would depend upon God for its very being, its existence. The root sense of creation does not concern temporal origination; rather it affirms metaphysical dependence.(14) For Aquinas, there is no conflict between the doctrine of creation and any physical theory. Theories in the natural sciences account for change. Whether the changes described are cosmological or biological, unending or finite, they remain processes. Creation accounts for the existence of things, not for changes in things. An evolving universe, just like Aristotle's eternal universe, is still a created universe. No explanation of evolutionary change, no matter how radically random or contingent it claims to be, challenges the metaphysical account of creation, that is, of the dependence of the existence of all things upon God as cause. When some thinkers deny creation on the basis of theories of evolution, or reject evolution in defense of creation, they misunderstand creation or evolution, or both.

Perhaps you could write them a letter and tell them they have Aquinas all wrong. He didn't believe an eternal universe was possible. Aquinas thought of god as the 'mega-manufacturer' of the universe.

But there are questions science cannot properly ask, let alone answer, questions about "why there is anything in the first place, or why what we do have is actually intelligible to us." That is where theology begins.

Why are those questions science cannot properly ask? The second in particular - the question of consciousness - is highly investigatable. And the first doesn't belong to just 'theology', but to philosophy. Saying it is a theological question is answering it before it's been considered.

First of all, we only have a bit of Eagleton in this paragraph. For the sake of context, the complete paragraph reads:

Christian theology cannot explain the workings of the universe and was never meant to, Eagleton says. Aquinas, like most religious thinkers that came after him, was happy to encompass all sorts of theories about the creation, including the possibility that the universe was infinite and had always existed. Indeed, Aquinas would concur with Dawkins' view that religious faith is irrelevant to scientific inquiry. But there are questions science cannot properly ask, let alone answer, questions about "why there is anything in the first place, or why what we do have is actually intelligible to us." That is where theology begins.

So, the paragraph itself is stating that some questions are best addressed by science and some by religion. We do not have the context of the actual 2 questions that appear to be Eagleton's, so my presumption is that if he asks them, he also gives more context; and since we are not privy to that context at this time, anything we say is merely speculation. But, I doubt Eagleton is trying to remove the question of consciousness from science. I think the question is metaphysical. A form of this question does appear under science as the question of the setting of universal constants at very specific values. Right now, science does not have a very good answer; nor even a good way of investigating it. But, again, we don't actually know the context in which Eagleton asks these questions.

The creedal declaration "I believe in God" is a statement of action and will; it is performative rather than assertive. It is not equivalent to the claim that God exists (although Christians believe that too). It possesses the kind of certainty that belongs to such wistful sentences as "I love you" or "I believe the Mets are the best team in baseball." It clearly lacks the empirical certainty of the sentence "I believe this maple tree will turn red in October."

How can you 'believe' in something, with any definition of 'believe', unless you think it exists? When you say "I love you", you have to think that the 'you' exists. And the same goes for the Mets. At least he's admitted that Christians believe God exists now, thus contradicting his claim that that is a 'crude distortion' of mainline Christian belief.

Well, the parentetical statement cleary says that Christians believe that god exists; so I'm not sure what the basis of your first question is. As to the citation of the "wistful" statement, "I love you," I don't think it's a question about the existence of the you, but of the belief in the full statement, being in love being a somewhat ambiguous state. Similarly, the question about the Mets is not questioning the existence of the Mets but rather the belief that they are the"best team in baseball." It really seems pretty elementary.

You can almost hear the steel chairs creaking as the last secular liberals rise to depart when Eagleton declares where his true disagreement with Richard Dawkins lies, which does not directly concern the existence of God or the role of science. "The difference between Ditchkins and radicals like myself," he writes, "hinges on whether it is true that the ultimate signifier of the human condition is the tortured and murdered body of a political criminal, and what the implications of this are for living."

Hmm, what was that word earlier? Ah yes, 'idolatry'. Eagleton thinks that the ultimate signifier for humanity is the story of one man? That's loading so much on to that one person, Eagleton better think he's a god. And it's a pisser for all the humans who lived before Jesus, whom Eagleton condemns to an existence without proper meaning. I'm not surprised that secular liberals give up on Eagleton at that point. It seems rather fundamentalist - that the story of Jesus has to be more important than any known history, any other story, or anyone's personal experience.

Once again, wow. I think you are misreading this. The context:

What the rationalist myth sees in the modern age are the tremendous advances made in curing disease and in increasing agricultural yield, which neither believer nor atheist wants to do without. It views Zyklon-B and the hydrogen bomb as momentary setbacks, if it notices them at all, and it generally avoids comment about the contradictory and confused economic system our allegedly liberal-humanist age has produced. It's a system, as Eagleton sees it, that pretends to be entirely logical but produces a cruel and irrational result: the poor made poorer and the rich much richer. And what are the greenhouse effect and the melting of the glaciers, if not artifacts of the Enlightenment?

...

You can almost hear the steel chairs creaking as the last secular liberals rise to depart when Eagleton declares where his true disagreement with Richard Dawkins lies, which does not directly concern the existence of God or the role of science. "The difference between Ditchkins and radicals like myself," he writes, "hinges on whether it is true that the ultimate signifier of the human condition is the tortured and murdered body of a political criminal, and what the implications of this are for living."

It's not the ultimate signifier for humanity. It is rather ultimate signifier of the human condition. And, again, in the context of the modern age, this is not about the story of one man. Rather it is about the contradictory and confused economic system our allegedly liberal-humanist age has produced. It's a system, as Eagleton sees it, that pretends to be entirely logical but produces a cruel and irrational result: the poor made poorer and the rich much richer. It is about the common occurence in our post enlightenment world of the tortured and murdered body of a political criminal, and what the implications of this are for living. The context is much broader than you are recognizing.

And after that, the review seems to degenerate into a moan that Dawkins and Hitchens are too optimistic about humans (weird, I always saw Hitchens as a cynical bastard), and that humanism is acceptable if it acknowledges that humans will always have major flaws and behave badly to each other. Oh well, so much for "God is what sustains all things in being by his love". Looks like God doesn't have that much influence after all.

Yes, many people today call for the recognition that advances in science do not lead to changes in human nature. Failure to recognize this will quite likely lead to the extinction of humanity. It's really not a joke.

[muriel_volestrangler]

44. Yes, I am familiar with mainline theology

As I said, it's preached all the time, and broadcast and published too. If you yourself are unfamiliar with it, I suggest this as a starting point:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html

Highlights relevant to those points above:

“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16). These words from the First Letter of John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny. In the same verse, Saint John also offers a kind of summary of the Christian life: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us”.

We have come to believe in God's love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. Saint John's Gospel describes that event in these words: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should ... have eternal life” (3:16). In acknowledging the centrality of love, Christian faith has retained the core of Israel's faith, while at the same time giving it new depth and breadth. The pious Jew prayed daily the words of the Book of Deuteronomy which expressed the heart of his existence: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might” (6:4-5). Jesus united into a single precept this commandment of love for God and the commandment of love for neighbour found in the Book of Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (19:18; cf. Mk 12:29-31). Since God has first loved us (cf. 1 Jn 4:10), love is now no longer a mere “command”; it is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us.

There is only one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, who is thus the God of all. Two facts are significant about this statement: all other gods are not God, and the universe in which we live has its source in God and was created by him. Certainly, the notion of creation is found elsewhere, yet only here does it become absolutely clear that it is not one god among many, but the one true God himself who is the source of all that exists; the whole world comes into existence by the power of his creative Word. Consequently, his creation is dear to him, for it was willed by him and “made” by him. The second important element now emerges: this God loves man.

This is due first and foremost to the fact that man is a being made up of body and soul. Man is truly himself when his body and soul are intimately united; the challenge of eros can be said to be truly overcome when this unification is achieved. Should he aspire to be pure spirit and to reject the flesh as pertaining to his animal nature alone, then spirit and body would both lose their dignity. On the other hand, should he deny the spirit and consider matter, the body, as the only reality, he would likewise lose his greatness. The epicure Gassendi used to offer Descartes the humorous greeting: “O Soul!” And Descartes would reply: “O Flesh!”.<3> Yet it is neither the spirit alone nor the body alone that loves: it is man, the person, a unified creature composed of body and soul, who loves. Only when both dimensions are truly united, does man attain his full stature. Only thus is love —eros—able to mature and attain its authentic grandeur.

You don't get more mainline than a man, recently elected by his peers who are well versed in theology, who now heads the largest church in the world, composing about half of all Christians.

See also: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html

[Jim__]

46. First of all, your citation isn't disagreeing with anything in the review.

Looking at the part of the review that we were discussing, the review says:

Many secular intellectuals, for instance, have claimed as Christian doctrine "the idea that God is some kind of superentity outside the universe, that he created the world rather as a carpenter might create a stool; that faith in this God means above all subscribing to the proposition that he exists; that there is a real me inside me called the soul, which a wrathful God may consign to hell if I am not egregiously well-behaved; that our utter dependency on this deity is what stops us thinking and acting for ourselves; that this God cares deeply about whether we are sinful or not, because if we are then he demands to be placated."

So, let's look at these one item at a time: the idea that God is some kind of superentity outside the universe, that he created the world rather as a carpenter might create a stool

This assertion was answered above. You can make any claim that you want, I doubt you will find many Catholic theologians who will claim that this pope is a better theologian that Thomas Aquinas. And, as stated above, here's what the people at the Catholic Education Resource Center state Aquinas wrote about the creation:

Aquinas saw no contradiction in the notion of an eternal created universe. He thought that it was a matter of biblical revelation that the world is not eternal. He also thought that reason alone could not conclude whether the world had a temporal beginning. But even if the universe were not to have had a temporal beginning, it still would depend upon God for its very being, its existence. The root sense of creation does not concern temporal origination; rather it affirms metaphysical dependence.(14) For Aquinas, there is no conflict between the doctrine of creation and any physical theory. Theories in the natural sciences account for change. Whether the changes described are cosmological or biological, unending or finite, they remain processes. Creation accounts for the existence of things, not for changes in things. An evolving universe, just like Aristotle's eternal universe, is still a created universe. No explanation of evolutionary change, no matter how radically random or contingent it claims to be, challenges the metaphysical account of creation, that is, of the dependence of the existence of all things upon God as cause. When some thinkers deny creation on the basis of theories of evolution, or reject evolution in defense of creation, they misunderstand creation or evolution, or both.

Next: that faith in this God means above all subscribing to the proposition that he exists

And, again, as stated above: The creedal declaration "I believe in God" is a statement of action and will; it is performative rather than assertive. It is not equivalent to the claim that God exists (although Christians believe that too).

So, the review explicitly states that Christians believe that God exists - more on this later - the context in the book is different from the implied context in the review.

Next: that there is a real me inside me called the soul, which a wrathful God may consign to hell if I am not egregiously well-behaved

And, from your citation:

This is due first and foremost to the fact that man is a being made up of body and soul. Man is truly himself when his body and soul are intimately united; the challenge of eros can be said to be truly overcome when this unification is achieved. Should he aspire to be pure spirit and to reject the flesh as pertaining to his animal nature alone, then spirit and body would both lose their dignity. On the other hand, should he deny the spirit and consider matter, the body, as the only reality, he would likewise lose his greatness.

That citation does not claim that the soul is the "real me." The claim is that man is integrally composed of "body and soul." Again, when I cite the paragraph from the book, the difference here between what the encyclical says and what the book states, is the type of abysmal crudity that Eagleton is referring to.

Next: that our utter dependency on this deity is what stops us thinking and acting for ourselves.

I don't see anything in your citations that directly address this point.

Next: that this God cares deeply about whether we are sinful or not, because if we are then he demands to be placated.

Again, I didn't see anything that directly addresses this.

In the paragraph where Eagleton makes this assertion, he does not claim that these things (elsewhere he does explicitly deny the caricature about the mega-manufacturer - denial that is born out by the citation about Aquinas) are not part of Christian doctrine. In that paragraph, Eagleton notes these as an abysmally crude, infantile version of what theology has traditionally maintained:

The truth is that a good many secular intellectuals with a reasonably sophisticated sense of what goes on in academic areas other than their own tout an abysmally crude, infantile version of what theology has traditionally maintained. ...

In the opening pages of the book, Eagleton admits to not being an expert on theology. He states that he would normally not have anything special to say about theology, leaving the matter to experts. The book is based on lectures he was invited to give due to his review of Dawkins' The God Delusion. He said he felt qualified to respond to Dawkins' and Hitchens' books because they are so comically uninformed. But, having read the book once (I will read it again) I think Eagleton's main argument is, and I am paraphrasing, that if we are going to seriously critique religion, we have to critique its strongest points and that Dawkins, Hitchens, et al failed to address the strong points of religion.

[muriel_volestrangler]

47. You keep pointing out that Aquinas thought that God created the universe

and then claiming this proves that mainline theology hasn't thought that God created the universe, for hundreds of years. I really can't see what point you're trying to make. How do you interpret "(Aquinas) thought that it was a matter of biblical revelation that the world is not eternal ... the dependence of the existence of all things upon God as cause", if not that God created the universe? Aquinas was just saying that reason alone would still permit an eternal, non-created universe. But Aquinas, just like all mainstream Christian theologians, did believe that God created the universe.

the review explicitly states that Christians believe that God exists

But it says that as a aside. That's what 'although' and 'too' mean in the relevant phrase. I'm pointing out the idiotic claim of the reviewer that you can 'believe in God' without thinking that God exists. And the dumb analogies the reviewer attempts to use, and looks stupid when they fail.

My point in quoting the pope as saying 'God exists' is that it proves that the most mainstream Christian theologian there is proclaims it as the fundamental part of being a Christian. The review claims that while Christians believe God exists, mainline Christian theologians don't consider that to be the fundamental basis of being a Christian. This is such a dumbass thing yo claim, it really disqualifies the reviewer from saying anything more, and we could ignore the arsehole from that point onwards. Nevertheless:

The pope believes in the existence of the soul, and in its immortality, as opposed to the mortal body. Thus the 'real me' is, in the long term, the soul.

The first excerpt I gave is about how God cares deeply whether humans sin or not. Anyway, are you really claiming that mainline Christianity says God doesn't care if people sin? Can you really say that with a straight face?

The "abysmally crude, infantile version" is what the pope proclaims. It's quite probable that Eagleton does find the pope infantile; but it can't be claimed that he's not in mainstream Christianity. I have no idea if you too find the pope's views infantile; but the 'strong points' of religion or theology aren't immediately obvious to me. Can you point them out, please? I'm hoping for something more than "it's not logically impossible that God exists".

[Jim__]

48. Please! Read the statements.

You keep pointing out that Aquinas thought that God created the universe and then claiming this proves that mainline theology hasn't thought that God created the universe, for hundreds of years.

No. As i said in my previous post, Eagleton is objecting to the crude, infantile versions of theology.

So, crude, infantile version #1:

the idea that God is some kind of superentity outside the universe, that he created the world rather as a carpenter might create a stool;

Aquinas' version of the creation:

Aquinas saw no contradiction in the notion of an eternal created universe. He thought that it was a matter of biblical revelation that the world is not eternal. He also thought that reason alone could not conclude whether the world had a temporal beginning. But even if the universe were not to have had a temporal beginning, it still would depend upon God for its very being, its existence. The root sense of creation does not concern temporal origination; rather it affirms metaphysical dependence.(14) For Aquinas, there is no conflict between the doctrine of creation and any physical theory. Theories in the natural sciences account for change. Whether the changes described are cosmological or biological, unending or finite, they remain processes. Creation accounts for the existence of things, not for changes in things. An evolving universe, just like Aristotle's eternal universe, is still a created universe. No explanation of evolutionary change, no matter how radically random or contingent it claims to be, challenges the metaphysical account of creation, that is, of the dependence of the existence of all things upon God as cause. When some thinkers deny creation on the basis of theories of evolution, or reject evolution in defense of creation, they misunderstand creation or evolution, or both.

Aquinas' version of creation can in no way be confused with a super-entity God who created the world as a carpenter creates a stool. A carpenter can not create a stool that has no temporal beginning. A carpenter can not create a stool that has a metaphysical dependence on him for continued existence.

But it says that as a aside. That's what 'although' and 'too' mean in the relevant phrase. I'm pointing out the idiotic claim of the reviewer that you can 'believe in God' without thinking that God exists. And the dumb analogies the reviewer attempts to use, and looks stupid when they fail.

If you say as an aside that Christians believe that God exists, how is that different from saying that Christians believe that God exists? But, aside from that, the context of the statement is:

Many secular intellectuals, for instance, have claimed as Christian doctrine "the idea that God is some kind of superentity outside the universe, that he created the world rather as a carpenter might create a stool; that faith in this God means above all subscribing to the proposition that he exists;

Once again, the belief that Eagleton is questioning is the belief in the comical god postulated by the previous statement - that's what the this means.

The pope believes in the existence of the soul, and in its immortality, as opposed to the mortal body. Thus the 'real me' is, in the long term, the soul.

Again, the pope is explicitly stating that a person is composed of a body and soul. He is explicit about this. He is not talking about the comical "real me" of the referenced statement. IIRC, it's Catholic teaching that body and soul are ultimately reunited. The pope's statement:

This is due first and foremost to the fact that man is a being made up of body and soul. Man is truly himself when his body and soul are intimately united; the challenge of eros can be said to be truly overcome when this unification is achieved. Should he aspire to be pure spirit and to reject the flesh as pertaining to his animal nature alone, then spirit and body would both lose their dignity. On the other hand, should he deny the spirit and consider matter, the body, as the only reality, he would likewise lose his greatness.

The pope's statement is clear. It does not at all match the comical claim.

[muriel_volestrangler]

50. "body and soul are ultimately reunited" - now that's a 'comical claim'

I'm not at all sure that Catholics teach that a physical body will be remade again at some time for a soul to inhabit (that raises questions like what stage of the body? Which physical problems that we have with bodies will be fixed, and which are people stuck with forever? And so on), but if that is their main teaching, it's quite a funny bit of wishful thinking.

Aqunias believed the universe had a temporal beginning, and that God created it. That is plainly obvious from the section you quote; it contrats Aristole's eternal universe with a created one, as revealed in biblical revelation that Aquinas subscribed to. Perhaps your problem is that you're quoting an article that is mainly about showing that evolution and divine creation are compatible, so that its emphasis isn't really about Aquinas' belief that God created the universe. Here's another summary of his argument: http://metaphysics.suite101.com/article.cfm/aquinas_first_cause_argument

Note that Aquinas did indeed regard God as a superentity outside of space and time. Hence the 'metaphysical dependence on him for continued existence'.

If you say as an aside that Christians believe that God exists, how is that different from saying that Christians believe that God exists?

Because the reviewer was saying that you could 'believe in God' without thinking that God exists. He's saying that 'believing in God' is a statement about your own wishes, and not about the existence of God. Which is a silly thing to say. I'm just pointing out the foolishness of the reviewer.

I think the pope's bit about body and soul in that quote has nothing to do with any future rebuilt body; it's just about the present, physical body. He's saying that denying any physical satisfaction at all would be 'unnatural' and a bad way to live; that people should strive to find satisfaction for their body that is in harmony with the the right way to live for the 'soul' - which he would say should follow Catholic teaching. It's a reasonable teaching for a religion; the point is, the pope assumes the existence of a soul is already accepted by all Catholics, because it's such a mainstream belief. And it is 'soul' that is the word used, not 'mind'; this is talking about the entity that can be eternal in Catholic teaching.

If you need something to show what typical Catholic theology is concerning the soul, here's something more from Benedict:

Faith reminds us that there is no need to be afraid of the death of the body because, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's (Rm 14:8). And with St Paul, we know that even if we are separated from our bodies we are with Christ, whose Risen Body, which we receive in the Eucharist, is our eternal and indestructible dwelling place.

True death, on the other hand, which is to be feared, is the death of the soul which the Book of Revelation calls "the second death" (cf. Rv 20:14-15; 21:8). In fact, those who die in mortal sin without repentance, locked into their proud rejection of God's love, exclude themselves from the Kingdom of life.

http://www.zenit.org/article-18103?l=english

Now, that's leaning towards the non-existence of hell, because it's talking about the soul dying - ie not an ongoing punishment, just ceasing to exist. But notice I did separate out the belief in hell as just something that 'many' Christians believe in. The "our eternal and indestructible dwelling place" seems to disagree with the idea of a new body, by the way. But it does show Benedict claims a soul can be eternal, if it believes and/or does the right things.

[Jim__]

51. My remark about the reuniting of the body and soul was an IIRC, turns out it was quite correct.

From a Catholic website:

The Bible tells us that when Jesus returns to earth, he will physically raise all those who have died, giving them back the bodies they lost at death.

These will be the same bodies people had in earthly life—but our resurrection bodies will not die and, for the righteous, they will be transformed into a glorified state, freed from suffering and pain, and enabled to do many of the amazing things Jesus could do with his glorified body (cf. 1 Cor. 15:35–44, 1 John 3:2).

The resurrection of the body is an essential Christian doctrine, as the apostle Paul declares: "{I}f the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished" (1 Cor. 15:13–18).

Because, as Paul tells us, the Christian faith cannot exist without this doctrine, it has been infallibly defined by the Church. It is included in the three infallible professions of faith—the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed—and has been solemnly, infallibly taught by ecumenical councils.

Having to repeat over and over the same quite correct arguments is tiresome. If you have something new to say, go ahead and say it. I don't see any need to repeat my arguments a fourth and fifth time.

[muriel_volestrangler]

52. I apologise for repeating my arguments, but you didn't seem to get them

Yes, I was finding it a bit tiresome, but you do seem now to have accepted that Aquinas believed that God created the universe; and I think you've accepted the present pope says this too. So I think we've established that mainstream Catholic theology does believe the 'crude, infantile' version, as you put it.

Thanks for the catholic.com link - although they aren't theologians themselves (just an organisation an attorney founded, who claim they publish the US's "premier journal of Catholic apologetics and evangelization"), they do reference the Catholic catechism, which says:

The "resurrection of the flesh" (the literal formulation of the Apostles' Creed) means not only that the immortal soul will live on after death, but that even our "mortal body" will come to life again.
...
In death, the separation of the soul from the body, the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its reunion with its glorified body. God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the power of Jesus' Resurrection.
...
When? Definitively "at the last day," "at the end of the world."

So they are expecting perfected physical bodies; so we can add that to the list of mainstream Christian theological claims (though I'm not sure whether Orthodox theologians agree with such a literal interpretation of the bible on this issue, or how many Protestant ones do).

So your position is that believing that a soul is eternal, and is the "real me", is a 'comical claim'; but that a soul is eternal, and that all souls that have ever existed and are 'saved' will be given a perfected physical body 'at the last day' changes the claim from 'comical' to 'serious'? I can't see where the humour has gone. It just seems to be added to, to me. How is the "real me" related to a new body without my present defects (and 'incorruptible'), that will exist in some unspecified future? The only link I can see is that soul you find 'comical'.

[Jim__]

53. No, I don't accept that Catholic theology accepts the crude, infantile version.

I've shown you the respect not to put words in your mouth. Don't put words in my mouth. You've now resorted to the childish tactic of stating that I am accepting your claims, when everything I've said is a complete rejection of your claims.

[muriel_volestrangler]

54. Then why did you twice quote Aquinas' belief in the biblical revelation of a non-eternal universe?

You did it in #34 and #48. If you're going to quote it twice, it seems important to you.

I've shown that Aquinas believed God created the universe. I've shown that the current pope thinks that too. You've quoted a theological site that says that too. Why do you think we disagree?

[Jim__]

55. Because the original quote on Aquinas' belief about the creation explicitly states that ...

... he accepts the possibility of an eternal universe:

... He also thought that reason alone could not conclude whether the world had a temporal beginning. But even if the universe were not to have had a temporal beginning, it still would depend upon God for its very being, its existence. The root sense of creation does not concern temporal origination; rather it affirms metaphysical dependence.(14) For Aquinas, there is no conflict between the doctrine of creation and any physical theory. ...

From post#46: What Eagleton actually says in the book (same paragraph as is quoted in the review): The truth is that a good many secular intellectuals with a reasonably sophisticated sense of what goes on in academic areas other than their own tout an abysmally crude, infantile version of what theology has traditionally maintained. ...

No one is denying that theology has traditionally maintained that God created the universe. What is explicitly denied is that that he created the world rather as a carpenter might create a stool which is the explicit statement both in the review and the book. This was stated in post #48:

Aquinas' version of creation can in no way be confused with a super-entity God who created the world as a carpenter creates a stool. A carpenter can not create a stool that has no temporal beginning. A carpenter can not create a stool that has a metaphysical dependence on him for continued existence.

And, as also stated in post #46:

In the opening pages of the book, Eagleton admits to not being an expert on theology. He states that he would normally not have anything special to say about theology, leaving the matter to experts. The book is based on lectures he was invited to give due to his review of Dawkins' The God Delusion. He said he felt qualified to respond to Dawkins' and Hitchens' books because they are so comically uninformed. But, having read the book once (I will read it again) I think Eagleton's main argument is, and I am paraphrasing, that if we are going to seriously critique religion, we have to critique its strongest points and that Dawkins, Hitchens, et al failed to address the strong points of religion.

[muriel_volestrangler]

56. I'll emphasise the words

"he accepts the possibility of an eternal universe"
"He also thought that reason alone could not conclude whether the world had a temporal beginning"
"But even if the universe were not to have had a temporal beginning"

Aquinas says that reason alone would allow a temporal universe. But he believes the bible when it reveals there was a temporal beginning to the universe. So "a stool that has no temporal beginning" is irrelevant here; Aquinas believed the universe had a temporal beginning, because it says so in the bible, and therefore the crude, infantile version is his; and it's also mainstream Christian theology. He thought the universe continues to depend on God for its existence; this is what describes him as a 'super-entity' - not only did he create the universe, but it would cease to be if God wanted it to.

Now, there may be some theologians somewhere who don't maintain what the Catholic and other churches have claimed for the past millennium or so (or more); but they're not mainstream. Eagleton may think they're arguments are stronger; but they're the fringe. Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and the rest engage the normal Christian (and Islamic, and other popular relgions) beliefs.

There are non-Christian theologians like Karen Armstrong who come up with such nebulous ideas of a deity that they say "God is undefinable". OK, then who cares about the concept, then? These 'strong' ideas of 'God' would be nice to know.

[Jim__]

57. Emphasizing selected words is fine; but you also have to look at the context.

First, as whether or not traditional theology maintains that he created the world rather as a carpenter might create a stool, from the same document on Aquinas and Creation:

To build a house or paint a picture involves working with existing materials and either action is radically different from creation. To create is to cause existence, and all things are totally dependent upon a Creator for the very fact that they are.

That is an explicit denial of the claim by a document on theological teachings.

As to: He also thought that reason alone could not conclude whether the world had a temporal beginning

Well, I tend to agree with him there. However, that is not to say that empirical evidence coupled with reason cannot reach a conclusion about whether or not the universe had a temporal beginning - although I don't believe it has yet. My reading is that Aquinas was open to the possibility that the universe may not have had a temporal beginning:

A master principle which informs Aquinas' analysis of creation is that the truths of science cannot contradict the truths of faith. God is the author of all truth and whatever reason discovers to be true about reality ought not to be challenged by an appeal to sacred texts.

...

Aquinas saw no contradiction in the notion of an eternal created universe. He thought that it was a matter of biblical revelation that the world is not eternal. He also thought that reason alone could not conclude whether the world had a temporal beginning. But even if the universe were not to have had a temporal beginning, it still would depend upon God for its very being, its existence. The root sense of creation does not concern temporal origination; rather it affirms metaphysical dependence.(14) For Aquinas, there is no conflict between the doctrine of creation and any physical theory.

Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and the rest engage the normal Christian (and Islamic, and other popular religions) beliefs.

Of course, what Eagleton explicitly states in his book (I don't have it with me now) is that to challenge religion, you need to challenge it at its best, not at its weakest point. I haven't seen any indication that either Dawkins or Hitchens (I've read their books on religion) has done any serious reading of theology. If they have no interest in theology, that's fine. You don't need to know theology to get through life. However, if you want to publicly attack religion, you do have an obligation to your readers to have some understanding of what the people most educated on the subject have to say, even though most readers will not recognize the difference.

It would be quite easy to do "man on the street" type interviews on people's opinions about, say. General Relativity or Quantum Theory, and then based on the answers you get, write a book ridiculing these theories because people's understanding of them are nonsensical. But, there's not much point in doing that. Neither is their much point in the types of attacks on religion that are made by Dawkins and Hitchens.

[muriel_volestrangler]

58. "He thought that it was a matter of biblical revelation that the world is not eternal"

And that's why you're wrong that "Aquinas was open to the possibility that the universe may not have had a temporal beginning". Reason does not say the universe must be eternal; the bible says it isn't eternal; and so therefore Aquinas accepts that the universe is eternal. As far as Aquinas is concerned, the 'truths' of science are not contradicting the truths of faith in this case, so he believes God created a non-eternal universe, because his faith says so.

[Jim__]

59. Clearly we disagree. But the point is moot.

The issue that we are actually discussing is the claim: he created the world rather as a carpenter might create a stool.

This is directly and explicitly refuted in the same document:

To build a house or paint a picture involves working with existing materials and either action is radically different from creation. To create is to cause existence, and all things are totally dependent upon a Creator for the very fact that they are.

[skepticscott]

41. Do the critics of Dawkins and Hitchens

ever get tired of the demonstrably false argument that fundamentalist whackos constitute only a tiny fringe majority of Christians in this country, and that they are being intellectually dishonest by characterizing Christianity that way generally? Polls consistently find that 40-50% of Americans (not just Christians, but all Americans) believe that god created the world as it is less than 10,000 years ago, in strict accordance with a literal reading of the book of Genesis. You don't get much whackier than that, and that's only one aspect of the beliefs adhering to unfailingly by the majority of Christians in the most sordidly Christian nation on earth.

[edhopper]

42. Thus my statement about

the Strawman arguments.

[Odin2005]

43. Eagleton! You Ignorant Twit!

Somebody remind this fool of the religious motivations of Victorian Age thinking.

<---- Unabashed adherent to the Enlightenment and progress.