Why Richard Dawkins Cannot Stomach the Eucharist
During P.Z. Myers' extended publicity stunt last summer, many Catholics (and even quite a few non-Catholics) asked why he was so intent on desecrating a Host. If it is, as he claims, just a "frackin' cracker," then what's the big deal? How is he hurt by the Catholic belief that is something more? Don't atheists like Myers always say that one of their major problems with Christians is that they refuse to live and let live? If they don't like Christian arguments against atheism, why intentionally provoke Christians?
Many of Myers' defenders claimed that he took his action in defense of a student at the University of Central Florida, who was under fire for taking a consecrated Host from a Mass on campus. But on his blog, Myers himself stated that the student's action simply provided a convenient excuse:
I’ve been intending to do something like this for a few months now. This was actually a good opportunity for something that is already written.
And on a fellow atheist's blog, he declared:
The point of desecrating the host isn’t to make people angry—it’s to demystify and desanctify nonsense. It’s how we wake people up—by showing that their beliefs are powerless.
In other words, the Eucharist is not simply a "frackin' cracker." At the very least, Myers' own actions and stated justifications for those actions show that it is a symbol. Myers thinks that it should not be, and by his actions he hoped to destroy its symbolism, but in attempting to do so, he proved quite the opposite: It remains a powerful symbol for millions of people.
Now, in the guise of commenting on Pope Benedict's recent overtures to disaffected Anglicans, Britain's most prominent atheist, Richard Dawkins, has launched his own attack on the Eucharist. Whatever else we might say about Dawkins, it would be decidedly un-British to engage in the type of puerile antics that P.Z. Myers relishes, so Dawkins isn't asking his legion of followers to help him "score" some consecrated Hosts so that he can reveal his lack of imagination by thrusting a rusty nail through one and tossing it in the garbage, to be covered with coffee grounds. (Dawkins' countryman and fellow atheist Christopher Hitchens, on the other hand, might be willing to take his cues from Myers, but no one has ever accused Hitchens of being the model of British rectitude.)
So Dawkins has confined his attack on the Eucharist to ridicule, leading off his column "Give us your misogynists and bigots" on the Washington Post online by referring to "the dotty idea that a priest, by blessing bread and wine, can transform it literally into a cannibal feast." (Interestingly, he claims that the "Anglican church does not cleave to" this idea, but the Anglo-Catholics or High Anglicans who approached the Vatican about reuniting with Rome do. Dawkins is either unaware of this fact, deliberately ignoring it, or only familiar with Low Church Anglicanism.)
This is not the place to examine the charge of "cannibalism," a claim as old as Christianity itself, particularly since Dawkins clearly does not believe it, since he thinks it's a "dotty idea" that such a transformation takes place.
Far more interesting are the possible reasons why Dawkins, Myers, and others almost obsessively return to what should seem to them to be a harmless—indeed, "dotty"—belief. Some might argue that this shows that the New Atheists aren't so much anti-Christian as they are anti-Catholic, and Dawkins' own column could be marshaled into evidence. He not only absolve Anglicans en masse of this "dotty idea" but praises the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, whatever else one might say about him, is indeed a Christian believer. But praising Rowan Williams allows Dawkins to score rhetorical points against the man he dismisses as "Pope Ratzinger."
I think, however, that Dawkins' problems with the doctrine of transubstantiation run far deeper than his shallow anti-Catholicism. Indeed, I would argue that they run deeper than his problems with Christianity. Rather, they go to the very heart of the narrow modern empiricist epistemology (the theory of knowledge) held by Dawkins, Myers, and others of the New Atheists.
In the broadest sense, empiricism claims that all true knowledge has its basis in experience. The history of modern empiricism—and yes, epistemologies, like everything else, have histories—is one of progressively narrowing the scope of what constitutes "experience."
But while there is a modern empiricism, empiricism per se is not strictly a modern epistemology. Aristotle was an empiricist. He believed that all knowledge comes first from our senses and would reject any claim to knowledge that does not arise from experience.
Yet Aristotle believed in things that he could not directly apprehend—and this is the heart of the matter. For Aristotelian empiricism forms the basis of the medieval Catholic synthesis of faith and reason.
Aristotle argued that everything that exists has three characteristics—matter, form, and purpose—and all three are accessible through the senses. Matter and form are the two that are important for this discussion, because when Catholics says that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ through this process that we call transubstantiation, we mean that the matter (the accidents or appearances) remain (they continue not only to look like but to exhibit all of the properties of bread and wine) but that the form (the substance) has changed.
In other words, the Catholic claim about what happens at the consecration is something that Aristotle would have understood, even if (being a non-Christian) he would have been skeptical that the change had actually occurred. Within the framework of Aristotelian empiricism, however, he could admit the possibility that the change had occurred.
That, however, is precisely what the modern empiricist cannot do, because once you admit that something—anything—that you cannot directly apprehend might exist, you move in the opposite direction from that which modern empiricism has taken over the past two-plus centuries.
The heart of the matter, then, is not even so much a question of atheism versus Christianity (in particular) or religion (in general), but of the way in which we approach the world around us, and of the limits of our knowledge of that world.
If Descartes and Kant fall off the horse in one direction (positing a purely rational metaphysic that does not need to have an empirical basis), Dawkins, Myers, and others fall off the other side.
And thus the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist takes center stage—and rightly so, from the New Atheists' standpoint. It illustrates everything that is wrong, not simply with religion, nor with Christianity, but with the older empiricism that lies at the heart of Western philosophy from the time of Aristotle on up to the early modern world.
Purely from a rhetorical standpoint, Dawkins and Myers have an enormous advantage, because even many of those Christians who believe that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ do not understand the philosophical basis for the Catholic claim. And many others, of course—even many who receive Communion every Sunday—have already abandoned the very belief and regard the Body and Blood as mere symbols.
Undermine faith in the Real Presence of Christ, and the "man in the sky," the philosophical proof of Whose existence also hinges on Aristotelian empiricism, is much more easy to take down.
Dawkins and Myers know just what to do to advance their cause. And Christians who respond to them merely in anger, without shoring up the intellectual foundations of their own faith, play right into their hands.
Thanks for finding that link to Myers’ comment; it looks like Google doesn’t index all of those. But even in context, it doesn’t mean what you say it means – he may have been intending some general debunking of miracle claims, but he certainly doesn’t say that he was thinking about a host specifically.
No, the reason he chose the eucharist (note: along with the Koran and The God Delusion) was very specifically because of the alleged death threats (and documented threats of expulsion and censure) against Webster Cook. That’s quite different from “a convenient excuse”.
(I suppose the eucharist is a logical target anyway… but not from a symbolic or metaphysical standpoint. It’s hard to find too many other claims of miracles that happen on a predictable schedule.)
This very well stated. Catholic belief in the real presence is not something you can expect one with no faith at all to understand. Protestants, especially non or anti-Catholic Christians should question why the mysteries of their own faith compare to an atheist.
What you call Dawkins’ “attack on the eucharist” is really just an accurate, if dismissively worded, description. Other than the tone, do you have any substantial objection to what he said?
Mr. Cameron, I would have thought that an extended discussion of the difference between modern and classical empiricism would amount to a substantial objection. Apparently not.
The article makes great play of the “Aristotelian empiricism form[ing] the basis of the medieval Catholic synthesis”.
This is true. But then Aristotle was debunked by Galileo, who told the bald truth about the universe in the face of this Catholic synthesis. And what did the Catholic Church do in response? Imprison Galileo as a heretic.
Go back to the drawing board, Scott.
Arthur, tell me this: How exactly did Galileo debunk Aristotelian empiricism? Or, to put it another way, how was Galileo’s epistemology (not his cosmology) different from Aristotle’s?
You might want to review the history of the Galileo controversy if you believe it was a debate over epistemology.
“I would have thought that an extended discussion of the difference between modern and classical empiricism would amount to a substantial objection. Apparently not.”
I’m not being hyperbolic or insincere in the least when I say: that was a world class burn.
Mr. Richert, I was reading through your piece and wondering why you (or anyone else) would dignify the antics of this self-obsessed huckster and his crass self promotion. The man seems pathetic – deep into his 60’s and still in love with the idea of being a convention-crashing iconoclast. Does no one ever grow up? Even if an unbeliever, has he truly lived that long and still not discovered the profound importance of religion and tradition, being as they are amongst the pillars that uphold a healthy civil society? Even now while the results of their loss are all about us, piling up and threatening to bury us? We have ceased to be a civil society, because the bonds that once held men together – to their place, their ancestors and each other – have been eradicated by “progress”, by iconoclasts (real ones, not attention-starved hacks aping iconoclasts now that it is not only safe but in vogue to do so), by extreme individualists and those miserable wretches who can only find happiness while destroying what has grown majestically and naturally over generations and amongst one’s ancestors, and replaced with the shabby product of a mind bereft of imagination and incapable of wonder. How could anyone trust an empiricist who fails to see this happening?
As I was saying, when I started this piece I was wondering why you’d give this rather sad person any more publicity, but going further I found you provided a valuable service. The nature of transubstantiation is something all Catholics should be familiar with, and everyone who would speak to the Church’s beliefs should understand. I think you’ve done an excellent job of laying it out in layman’s terms. Not to mention your exquisite riposte to Mr. Cameron.
Thank you.
I found it amusing that Myers apparently missed the symbolism of driving a nail through the Body of Christ. Why would doing such a thing shake one’s faith when it STARTED the faith in the first place is beyond me.
And both you and Dawkins are mistaken. Pretty much all Anglicans believe in the Real Presence, just not in transubstantiation. It is almost impossible to prayer the Eucharist Prayers from the Book of Common Prayer without believing it. The whole rite presupposes it.
@”how was Galileo’s epistemology (not his cosmology) different from Aristotle’s?”
Aristotle was light on empiricism while he rationalized his way through a set of propositions, and virtually nothing he imagined stood up to experiments and testing. A bit like religion, in fact.
Galileo, on the other hand, introduced an empirical methodology based on experiments and modelling that signalled the dawn of modern science.
For that impertinence, Galileo was persecuted by the Catholic Church.
Centuries on, and the religious are still pouring scorn on tested models and posing a threat to the bald truths of science. As an evolutionary biologist, Dawkins knows this all too well. And he didn’t pick this fight. His response follows decades of attacks from the religious right against the otherwise uncontroversial theory of evolution. Another bald truth.
And in 2009, scientists can still be vilified for speaking this bald truth. We should be glad that people fought for the right to oppose religious suppression, and glad that someone like Dawkins is now willing to call the bluff of the religious. All in the name of the bald truth.
Thank you, Arthur, for saying what I expected you to say. The history of the Galileo controversy is much more complicated than the high-school textbook version that you present.
Aristotle was not a rationalist, as modern empiricists claim; and Galileo, despite his use of empirical methodology to attempt to disprove geocentrism, used a Pythagorean and Platonic rationalism (itself anathema to such modern empiricists as Dawkins) to deduce many of his most famous claims.
That, in fact, goes to the heart of his conflict with Cardinal Bellarmine, who exhibited a more empirical attitude toward Galileo’s claims than Galileo himself did, writing:
Galileo’s desire to prove his Pythagorean theory of heavenly motion correct even led him to deny evidence that others, such as Kepler, had empirically determined (for instance, regarding the reason for tides).
The Roman Inquisition’s infamous “persecution” of Galileo was nothing of the sort. The Church’s denunciation of the Pythagorean doctrine of the motion of the earth in 1616 did not affect Galileo in the least. His works continued to be available, and Galileo’s name was not attached to the denunciation.
Yet over the next 20 years, Galileo became more insistent that the Pythagorean theory of heavenly motion was not merely a theory (which would have been a good empirical stand to take) but purely and simply true. When Urban VIII, an admirer of Galileo, became pope, Galileo’s future was assured—but he threw it all away because he could no longer treat his theory as a theory, as Urban asked him to do.
Instead, he deliberately insulted Pope Urban in his Dialogue on the Two Great World Systems, and his enemies managed to bring him before the Roman Inquisition, after a year’s delay at Galileo’s request.
When he appeared before the Roman Inquisition, the man who is held up as the great opponent of Church obscurantism claimed that the Dialogue on the Two Great World Systems was written against Copernicus—a lie that no one believed, but which gives the lie to Galileo’s vaunted courage.
After Galileo agreed to recant, he spent the last decade of his life in a mild detention, during which he wrote his greatest work. Unlike the Dialogue on the Two Great World Systems, which included Galileo’s anti-empirical and utterly wrong theory of the tides, the Dialogue Concerning Two New Sciences became the foundation for Newtonian physics.
Oddly, none of those who regard the Galileo controversy as one of black and white, good and evil, religious obscurantism and scientific enlightenment ever considers the fact that Galileo’s most astonishing errors occurred during his period of controversy, and his most lasting achievements occurred during the period after he agreed to recant and to accept the Church’s punishment.
It is, as I wrote earlier, a much more complicated story than that which we all “know” from survey courses in the history of the early modern age. And, I dare say, far more interesting. Those who would strip the story of its wondrous complexity in order to make it easier to attack the Catholic Church ultimately do Galileo a great disservice.
Good piece, Scott.
According to Christopher Caldwell, the real target of Dawkins (and his fellow travelers) is Islam. Dawkins, however, is too cowardly to attack Islam directly (because of the possibility of a backlash or violence), so he attacks Christianity, hoping that the Muslims will infer good liberal values from this display. If this is true, if this truly is Dawkins’ strategy, then the guy needs his head examined. And he says Christians are “irrational”?
Ignatz, while you are right that belief in the Real Presence is widespread in Anglicanism, there is a range of views. Broadly speaking, however, those who do regard the Eucharist as merely symbolic are generally Low Church, while High Church Anglicans almost universally believe in the Real Presence (and any of those who would convert certainly do).
Thanks, Mr. Toddard, for your kind words.
Thank you, Matthew. For a number of reasons (not the least of which is that Dawkins’ attacks on various Christians seems to vary inversely with the strength of their belief in the Incarnation), I’m skeptical of Caldwell’s claim. What evidence does he provide to back it up?
Caldwell doesn’t give any specific examples, but groups Dawkins in with Christopher Hitchens, Michael Onfray, and the cross-dressing “artist” Grayson Perry. Caldwell suggests they are “hoping Muslims will learn the lessons of Voltaire,” but that “Europeans have gone to great lengths to insulate Islam from Voltaire’s methods.” Thus, their target is Christianity. He quotes Grayson Perry as saying, when asked why he only criticizes Christianity and not Islam if he is opposed to religion in general, “The reason I haven’t gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat.”
Oh my but you do run on.
I’m sorry but this indignation by Scott for the desecration of the Eucharist in this article is humorous at best. Christianity had it’s roots in persecution by the Romans in early AD. It has since spent the last 1600 years persecuting anyone that even hinted at Christianity not being real and if people like Scott and some of his followers still had their way it would still be like that. In reading his little tirade on Galileo he’s still pretty much in agreement with the church punishing the man for being a heretic. After all who was he to disagree with a man such as the Pope? Just as I’m sure he believes Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Myers should be punished for disagreeing with religion of any kind.
Dawkins main argument and much of science’s main objection with religion is the fact that it has quashed any idea, theory or fact that did not coincides with its own teachings for the last 1600 years. Even to this day there are those attempting to stop the teaching of evolution in schools. What foundation would give any religion the right to decide on scientific knowledge when it is so steeped in a superstition of no proof or evidence?
As Arthur says we should be glad for the people that fight for the right to oppose religious suppression. We do not want a return to the Dark Ages.
Matthew, I don’t doubt that many of the New Atheists avoid criticizing Islam out of fear—they know that, despite all their overblown rhetoric about how atheists are “persecuted” by Christians (I mean, Dawkins has lost his job, seen his books suppressed, been placed under house arrest, and is scheduled to go before the Roman Inquisition next month, right?), they face no physical danger from Christians.
Yet I think that there is something else at work here. Islam is, after all, anti-Christian in its essence, too, and in the same way that the New Atheism is. The New Atheists do not just despise Christianity; they hate its incarnational nature.
A century after its publication, G.K. Chesterton’s Flying Inn seems every day more prophetic.
Scott M., I’m afraid that if an article that would take up two to three pages in an average book with fairly large type, or that amounts to a (smallish) front-page article in the New York Times, is too long for you, then you probably won’t want to bookmark this site.
Ron Peer, you’re awfully “sure” of many things, none of which (so far) have turned out to be true.
As for the question of evolution that you and Arthur keep returning to, pick up a copy of In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, by a certain Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. You might be surprised what you find in there.
It constantly amazes me that the most shrill of the atheists don’t see the obvious problems with their simplistic histories of the “conflict” between Christianity and science. If the Church was so absolute and devastating in Her “persecution” and “punishment,” if She has succeeded in “quashing” every idea that makes up modern science, how is it that modern science exists and flourishes?
Galileo’s story is much more interesting than Mr. Peer or Arthur believes it to be. That’s because it is a human story—not an abstract ideological screed from those who can only see history in black and white. And no, I don’t mean Christians.
The point of actions such as Meyers’, and of all iconoclasts, is to pretend to the power and authority of what is desecrated. Kings want this power for themselves, officials of competing religions want it for the new gods or rites, and today’s atheists for their ideologies. Oh yes, they also want to hurt, enrage, and demoralize believers, but their main interest is to get rid of all authority not man-made.
Mr. Richert,
While I agree that mere anger alone, without “shoring up the intellectual foundations of their own faith”, will avail Catholics little, desecration of the Host must be stopped. We are in a fight for our culture’s survival, which has real consequences for our physical survival, as well, and we must not let the barbarians get away with this. If we believe as we say we do that God is present in the Host, gaurds must be posted wherever there is a threat, to take these wretches by the scruff of the neck and deposit them outside in the gutter where they belong.
Myers, Dawkins et al are unworthy of any attention or effort. Don’t waste life on the dead.
Proverbs27:22
Though you grind a fool in a mortar, grinding him like grain with a pestle, you will not remove his folly from him.
Matthew 7:6
“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.
Luke 9:60
Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Revelation 22:11
Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy.
By the very act of publishing something about them you draw attention to them. You unintentionally help them draw traffic? Have you seen what the Whitehouse naming FOX News has done for FOX News ratings?
Never will I take their name upon my lips, (nor will I publish their names on my blog)
Or, Ted, it could be that I am using my discussion to advance serious points that need to be discussed. I have a cardinal rule in writing about the actions and words of men such as Myers and Dawkins: I will not simply report on something they have done or said. Only if I can provide a piece that should be worth reading in itself will I mention them.
Mr. Richert, your attempt to marshal figures in the history of philosophy in your defence is quaint but entirely unconvincing.
You say that Dawkins’ problems with transubstantiation “go to the very heart of the narrow modern empiricist epistemology… of the New Atheists… one of progressively narrowing the scope of what constitutes “experience.”"
This is simply not true. If the scope of ‘experience’ has narrowed then what reason would scientists have for believing in the existence of other galaxies, black holes, dark matter or in DNA or subatomic particles – all of which are plainly not ‘directly apprehended’ by the senses? None. But they do because science is not in the grips of kooky hyper-empiricism as your caricature portrays it. Would they also deny (supposedly rationalist, since they aren’t evinced by sense data) truths like modus ponens or that pi is an irrational number? Certainly not, since there is ample evidence (though not from the senses) for the veracity of these beliefs.
The real epistemic difference between scientists such as Galileo, Dawkins and Meyers and Catholic transubstantiationists like you, Mr. Richert, is that the former look for evidence and reason to support their beliefs while the latter are content to have them handed down dogmatically (if you deny this then tell me: what evidence would convince you that there is no man in the sky or that the communion is just a cracker?)
The real metaphysical difference between the two runs parallel: those who base their beliefs on evidence endorse naturalism (aka materialism), while those who are content to go without endorse supernaturalism – and this is why atheists disparage Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Wicca, and belief in ghosts, fairies, etc. equally: its all just unsupported hocus pokus.
My question for you, Mr. Richert: The church now admits that Galileo was right about heliocentrism and has come closer than ever to admitting that humans are the products of evolution. How much longer until they admit that condoms save lives in Africa and that crackers and wine are not literally flesh and blood?
Sorry, but all that talk of Galileo is rather unnecessary when you put him in the same sentence as Dawkins.
As you say the evidence took him somewhere. It showed him that the Church’s teaching of the earth in the middle of the solar system was incorrect – - – however, this is where you need to get your facts straight – Galileo died a CATHOLIC, he NEVER denounced his faith and simply decided that his understanding showing him how much more wonderful god was and how man would never understand everything about it, even when he thinks he’s getting there, he realises he has more to learn.
So I do not think that Galileo can be classed as similar to Dawkins, maybe Newton but NOT Dawkins.
– and in fact the Vatican archieves show that Galileo was tried for heresy for directly challenging Church infallibility – using his teachings to do that. Lets see how you’d get on if you challenged the state like he did… I dont be suprised if you ‘disappear’ like he did – this does tend to happen a lot these days after all!
Also you need to put that understanding in the frame of mind of the reformation and you’ll understand why he got the chop… its not that suprising really.
In any case, why are you on this board if you’re a Dawkins but t muncher?
Scott this is the point that you are missing. You said:
“It constantly amazes me that the most shrill of the atheists don’t see the obvious problems with their simplistic histories of the “conflict” between Christianity and science. If the Church was so absolute and devastating in Her “persecution” and “punishment,” if She has succeeded in “quashing” every idea that makes up modern science, how is it that modern science exists and flourishes?”
I’m saying what right does or did the church have in any scientific discussion at any time in history. Religion is not science, it never had any right in trying to punish someone for anything. Do not confuse the two or even attempt to you only look foolish in trying to do so. This is the very big point you are missing. Science is theory which begins through an observation it proceeds to collection of data and experimentation to prove the theory. Religion never had a right to hold court of science.
Mr. Jacobi, in the line that you quote, I wasn’t discussing how Catholics should respond to desecration of the Host but of how they should respond to the arguments of such men as Myers and Dawkins. Part of the reason that so many Catholics have lost faith in the Real Presence is that their priests (and, even more so, their extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist) treat the Host as if it were mere bread. Reversing that trend is essential.
I fully understand your point, Mr. Peer; do you understand mine? Dawkins claims that the Catholic Church is one of the greatest forces for evil in the history of the world. Atheists constantly bring up the Galileo case as if the Church managed by it to confine the world to the dark ages. And yet Dawkins remains free to spout his vitriol and to profit from his silly little book; and Galileo produced his greatest work while under the censure of the Church.
Tell me, Mr. Peer—if Richard Dawkins or even Galileo had spoken out in the Soviet Union against the atheistic communist regime (not even attacking atheism, but just the atrocities perpetrated by the Soviets), or personally attacked Stalin as Dawkins has attacked “Pope Ratzinger” and Galileo attacked his most ardent supporter (!) Pope Urban VIII, how long do you think either one would have lasted? And do you think that the Soviet response, which anyone who knows his history and isn’t blinded by irrational ideology will know would have been much more severe, would have nothing to do with the atheism of the regime?
Years ago mom said:
To be pitied rather than censored
I believe her comment can be easily applied to those
who have chosen atheism.
They are so blind, so self absorbed in their own
intellect that they fail to see God’s presence in all
life.
The finality of their existence is another sad aspect
For them it is a cold casket buried in a ground when
in that aspect of life is just the beginning
Eternity goes
on longer than the human mind can even envision.
Sad for them.
Nice article Scott…as always.
“This is not the place to examine the charge of “cannibalism,” a claim as old as Christianity itself,”
Why not? Catholics believe things that are flying-monkey insane, and you declare that out of bounds? How convenient.
Reginald, I didn’t declare it “out of bounds”; I simply said that this wasn’t the place for me to talk about it since I had different fish to fry. If you would like to accuse Catholics of literally engaging in cannibalism, feel free to marshal your evidence and do so.
And, by the way, the sacred monkeys of the Vatican cannot fly. I’m not sure how that rumor got started; I suspect some atheist watched The Wizard of Oz one too many times.
No response, Mr. Richert?
Perhaps letting your trolls hurl ad hominems is the best that can be done?
Someone does indeed seem to be trolling here, Eastvanistan.
You treat all scientists, in every discipline, today as if they are exactly like Dawkins and Myers. I have never, and would never, suggest that all scientists subscribe to the narrow empiricist epistemology of Dawkins and Myers. And it’s not mere coincidence, I would argue, that atheism is much less common among, say, physicists.
You do a disservice to both Galileo and Dawkins to lump them in together. Galileo, whatever his personal faults (his pride, like Urban VIII’s pride, had a lot to do with the outcome of his case), never abandoned the Catholic Faith. And Dawkins, I dare say, is probably just as likely to cast aside Galileo’s Pythagoreanism and his Platonism as he is Galileo’s Catholicism.
Dawkins would also not call his belief (as you correctly put it) in evolution a belief but the truth. He is no longer looking for evidence to support his beliefs; he has decided that they are true, and he is damning anyone who doesn’t agree exactly with him. So, for instance, it is not enough for Dawkins that someone like “Pope Ratzinger” has made it abundantly clear over the years that he finds the scientific evidence for evolution more convincing than not. No—because Benedict goes on to say that evolution cannot account for the existence of the soul, Dawkins must damn him equally with those who believe in the most literal form of creationism.
As for looking for evidence to support the beliefs of faith, stay tuned. I have a post planned on that very point. You won’t like it, however, because the very real evidence I will offer won’t meet your narrow empiricist understanding of what “experience” means.
That’s clear from your statement that “those who base their beliefs on evidence endorse naturalism (aka materialism).” As I pointed out in this post, that is certainly true of a narrow modern empiricism, but it is not historically true of all empiricism. Like it or not, Eastvanistan, I’m an empiricist; I’m just not your kind of empiricist.
Thanks for your prompt reply, Mr. Richert. FYI, I am no troll – when I begin to refer to those with whom I disagree as ‘butt munchers’, then you may call me a troll.
I acknowledge the point about Galileo’s faith but you’ve ignored my main question: for what reason do you claim that (some) scientists conception of experience is ‘narrow’, despite the fact that they include things like bosons and galaxies (clearly outside the domain of the ‘directly apprehendable’) in their ontologies? How can you call modern scientific empiricism ‘narrow’ if it not only countenances these entities but also allows for a priori truths like the ones I’ve mentioned?
To my lights, the epistemic difference at issue is not one of narrowness of scope regarding what counts as evidence, but rather a difference in what kind of justification for beliefs is given preference. The scientific types look for evidence (almost exclusively empirical evidence, except when look at the foundations of math or logic, for instance) to justify their beliefs. Religious types look to sources (or perceived sources) of authority to justify their beliefs.
Again I ask: if this is not so then tell me what empirical data do you have that supports transsubstantiation? (and what data would convince you of its falsity?) If the kind of ‘experience’ to which you refer is some sort of subjective intuition then I contend that you misuse the label empiricist. ‘Feeling’ a divine presence for example is *not* sensory experience (what sensory modality does it engage?), and does not amount to empirical evidence – and this is not a new twist on what counts as empiricism: throughout history empiricism has required elements such as replicability, objectivity and fallibility.
Finally a bit of hairsplitting about matters epistemic (since it is my academic AOE):
You say “Dawkins would also not call his belief… in evolution a belief but the truth”.
It is both, and it is also a ‘theory’ and there is no contradiction in this (as Dawkins often reiterates). He holds a belief that the proposition ‘living things evolve by natural selection’ is true, and this belief is made true by the fact that out in the world living things *do* evolve. Likewise I can say I believe ’snow is white’, and this belief is true because of the color snow is in reality.
Also in your original piece you mention “true knowledge”: a true faux pas for an aspiring philosopher, Mr. Richert. It is trivially the case that all knowledge is true (ie. it conforms to reality), since the truth of a proposition is a necessary for a proposition to be known – if it turns out false, it is not “false knowledge” but rather was never known in the first place.
I look forward to your considered reply.
One further point: it does not seem to be the case that a greater proportion of physicists are theists compared to the other sciences (both natural and life sciences).
In fact a recent study here
http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/sp.2007.54.2.289
shows that more physicists responded that “there is very little truth to any religion” than any other scientific field. Physicists also tied with biologists for most affirmative responses to the statement “I do not believe in God”
There is also a study showing that academic comendation in the hard sciences is also inversely proportional to religiosity… but I don’t have the link in front of me.
Eastvanistan: it seems rather stupid to demand as proof of what is declared to be a miracle and a mystery by the Church (i.e. Transubstantiation) the same sort of mundane empirical evidence that one seeks in determining the chemical constitution of, say, water. The whole point of the matter is that Transubstantiation is a supernatural event–its cause(s) is literally above nature and the natural order. To demand a natural explanation for what is posited at the outset as a supernatural phenomenon is, quite frankly, the mark of either a moron or an ideologue with extreme tunnel vision.
The proof proper to this particular subject matter is not empirical “data” in the sense in which you use the term, but lies in the historical record and the perceived veracity of a) the biblical authors and the unbroken Christian tradition dating from Christ, and b) Christ Himself. The doctrine of Transubstantiation is not a stand-alone thing; it depends upon a prior determination that Christ is indeed Who He says He is (in order to ascertain that Transubstantiation is, indeed, a fact), as well as a certain philosophical and theological framework (in order to grasp how such a seemingly dotty notion could possibly BE the fact).
I’ll go no further with this argument, as I believe the point should be well enough understood: there are truths that are beyond the competency of empirical science to grasp (historical events, the entire science of mathematics, etc), and it is useless to apply to them the same standard of proof that applies to material things existing within the natural order. The upshot, as it applies to the enemies of Christ, is that while they may justly opine that Transubstantiation (et al) does not occur because they do not believe He is God, or because they believe such a thing is logically impossible, when they begin to sling their slurs and insults based upon the fact that such doctrines don’t admit of empirical “verification,” the ones who come out looking like fools in the eyes of educated persons are only themselves.
Mr. Newland,
It makes me happy to say: your comment @38 beat me to the punch. More precisely, in my frustration with the demand for empirical data concerning Transubstantiation, (and, regretfully and respectfully, with Mr. Richert’s attempt to accomodate same) I was just about to post the following lines of Pascal to be done with it:
“How I hate such foolishness as not believing in the Eucharist, etc. If the Gospel is true, if Jesus Christ is God, where is the difficulty?”
Yours is the exact exegesis corresponding to M. Pascal’s lines, posted and ready before you knew it was going to be called for. I will say no more.
Mr. Newland: I agree wholeheartedly! To ask for empirical evidence of transubstantiation (or anything of the sort) is just daft! This is supposed to be a supernatural event, and while that doesn’t preclude there being some objective evidence to lend credence to such an interpretation (if say, the cracker took on a fleshy appearance), empirical evidence is not the way people come to believe in transubstantiation.
How do they come to believe in it? Mr. Newland is right: “The doctrine of Transubstantiation is not a stand-alone thing; it depends upon a prior determination that Christ is indeed Who He says He is”. Mr. Jacobi also hit the nail on the head: “If the Gospel is true, if Jesus Christ is God, where is the difficulty?” Of course those are big ‘if’s for those unlike Pascal who are not already convinced of the Bible’s unerring authority! This is the very same reason we non-believers find his wager so laughable.
This all supports my earlier point: it is not that the empirical evidence is silent on matters like transubstantiation, the “mundane empirical evidence” (as spoken by someone who is accustomed to berating the empirical evidence as merely mundane) points to the opposite interpretation: just a cracker.
Consequently, I agree with Mr. Jacobi. Mr. Richert’s insistence that he is an empiricist is just ridiculous. The justification for belief in transubstantiation is the authority of the bible and those who proclaim its truth, not empirical evidence.
What say you, Mr. Richert?
As I mentioned above, Eastvanistan, I had a post planned on this topic, and I have posted it today. As I also mentioned, you won’t like it, and you won’t regard the evidence I offer as empirical because it doesn’t match your narrow modern empiricist definition of what “experience” means.
So go on over to that post, read, and scoff. But while doing so, consider this: If what I’ve written there does not reflect the experience of Catholics, then why would billions (literally) over the course of two millennia believe as they do?
The claim that it’s all an argument from authority rings hollow. Without widespread experience of the effects of the Eucharist, an argument from authority would have broken down long ago. Christianity isn’t some blip on the historical scene, a little Jim Jones cult that could survive a few years or even a few decades through charismatic leadership; it is the most widespread and enduring institution ever found among men.
Even without considering the metaphysical truth of Christianity, to maintain that there is no grounding other than authority for the widespread experience of the reality of the Eucharist over 2,000 years, you must posit mass delusion or mass stupidity—and perhaps you do. If so, there’s not really much common ground on which we can hold a discussion, is there?
First, as I stated before, there is nothing narrow or modern in demanding repeatability, objectivity and falsifiability in empirical data. These are universal standards when making empirically-based judgements and you use them yourself every day, Mr. Richert, you just don’t hold your evidence for transubstantiation to the same rigorous criteria.
And so the evidence for such beliefs falls to ‘how could x number of people over y number of years be wrong’?
Sure a billion or so people believe as you do, and some have believed something like this for 2000 years. But there are more Muslims than Catholics, and as many Hindus… and the Hindus (with the Rigveda dating to ~1500BCE) and several others sure have you beat in terms of duration.
How do you explain their beliefs in these false gods, Mr. Richert?
“The claim that it’s all an argument from authority rings hollow. Without widespread experience of the effects of [insert Hindu or Muslim experience of faith here] an argument from authority would have broken down long ago.”
So are these people deluded or stupid, Mr. Richert? Why is it so outrageous that 1 billion Catholics could be wrong, when your religion is predicated on the other 5 billion or so people in the world being victims of “mass delusion or mass stupidity”?
It matters not how many believe, nor for how long… my conclusion stands:
Your belief in the transubstantiation (like all religious belief) is based on appeal to a perceived authority, not on empirical data. Nuff said.
Go ahead and [insert Hindu or Muslim experience of faith here], Eastvanistan. Just make sure that it is something comparable to the Real Presence. I’ll be interested in seeing what you come up with.
You’ll note that I did not say “how could x number of people over y number of years be wrong?” I said that billions of people over two millennia have had the same experience. The evidence of that experience cannot be simply be discarded without doing violence to history. But you’re not concerned with explaining human experience; you’re concerned with rejecting it in order to advance your narrow and cramped worldview. At least those who try to chalk it all up to “serotonin levels” or other materialistic explanations take the experience seriously.
Catholicism is not “predicated on the other 5 billion or so people in the world being victims of ‘mass delusion or mass stupidity.’” Lack of faith in Christ is a defect, to be sure, but it does not require one to be deluded or stupid. Blithely rejecting the widespread experience of believers over two millennia, however, just might.
I am sure you would be shocked at just how similarly your religious experiences are to those of Muslims and Hindus. What makes you think your experiences must be so different?
“I said that billions of people over two millennia have had the same experience. The evidence of that experience cannot be simply be discarded without doing violence to history.”
But are you not just ‘discarding’ the religious experiences of the 4-5 billion faithful to other gods? Why is it “violence to history” when it pertains to catholics but not to others? Are you not just “Blithely rejecting the widespread experience of believers over two millennia” when you reject their gods?!
And how is Catholicism is not predicated on the other 5 billion or so people in the world being victims of ‘mass delusion or mass stupidity.’? Isn’t your your faith based on the belief that yours is the one true god? If others are praying to a god that does not exist, are they not deluded or stupid?
Like other apologists you can’t see the hypocrisy in endorsing one but not all gods, Mr. Richert.
Really? Muslims and Hindus have an incarnational and sacramental view of the world? That would come as a surprise to Muhammad, who made opposition to Christian incarnationalism the centerpiece of his religion, and to both the pantheistic and dualistic sects of Hinduism.
And no, I’m not discarding the religious experience of other believers—even believers in false gods. Catholics can reject the gods of those other religions while placing the experience of those believers into the proper context.
If you’re really interested in understanding how, rather than simply trying to score points in a debate, you could start with Nostra Aetate, Vatican II’s Declaration on
the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions and Chapter One of Section One of Part One of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
There is no “hypocrisy” in the Christian “endorsing one but not all gods” if God is Who we say He is—the Alpha and the Omega, the First Principle and our final end. Only Judaism and Islam can make a similar claim; and the former has not yet accepted the fullness of the revelation of Christ, while the latter has rebelled against it.
When it comes to God I personally find it preferable to have a faith, which may be periodically doubted, than to have doubt in which I must place my faith.
The idea that the universe is simply composed of matter and life is nothing but a random luck equation is the atheist explanation of how said matter could suddenly become animate and intelligent. Or, in other words, there is doubt that life is special because of a faith in random chance.
The idea that life was imbued into the universe from a divine source, God, is another explanation for the animation of the matter the universe is composed of. Or, in other words, there is faith in God because of the doubt of random chance.
A common atheist argument against God is, “Why would God let (insert atrocity) happen?” Well, since there is an element known as free will, it turns out that God doesn’t make the world this way, we do.