This is from a listerv discussion that I carried out with a now, unknown interlocuter on the relationship between the traditional orthodox Christian understanding of God the pragmatic philosopher, John Dewey's appropriation of the term, "god," that he sought to interpret through exclusively on naturalistic terms. The dialogue also references on Dewey's 1884 essay, "On the Obligation to Know God," which he wrote in his avowedly Christian faith, which he later abandoned. I am pressing Dewey to own that obligation.
BD: Dewey said that we have no warrant to believe in a supernatural God, and so we shouldn’t.
GD: “No warrant” is a strong claim for a consistent fallibilist. Agnosticism with an open mind would be the more reasonable position. In terms of warrant, as a fallible presupposition, at least in terms of a biblically based belief (“we see in a glass darkly”), we have the witness of the Bible writers themselves, and the continuation of the basic biblical narrative, including many autobiographies, which range over hundreds of years over a wide geographic span. This includes highly informed contemporary expositors, many of whom have grappled profoundly with the relationship between faith (what the NT describes as “the faith that was once delivered to the saints,” Jude, vs 3) and the challenges of modernity/postmodernity like N.T. Wright. http://www.ntwrightpage.com/. I do no offer this as proof. I do offer it in light of your claim of “no warrant,” what the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews refers to as “a mighty cloud of witnesses” (Heb 11:1).
BD: Why shouldn’t Dewey “work against” theism if he believed it wrong? You could say that anyone who expressed himself strongly is unreasonably prejudiced against the belief he opposed.
GD: No problem there, but in doing so Dewey’s concept of religion, and even “the religious,” at least from the perspective of radical monotheism and 2000-2500 years of history is highly truncated. If he described what he was getting at as “plenitude of being” I would have no objection. And then when he injects the term “God” to define either the operation beneath the formation of the more “inclusive whole,” or the inclusive whole as such (I’m not sure), then I object to his naturalistic appropriation of the concept of God, which in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam means something fundamentally different than what Dewey was getting at.
BD: I agree with Dewey: belief in the supernatural is not just a wrong opinion, it is a dangerous one that has caused much mischief.
GD: As a fallibalist, it would be illegitimate for Dewey to have made such a claim, which is not the same as identifying certain problems with traditional religious beliefs—traditions that at least in part have evolved a great deal through history while maintaining an underlying identifiable and durable framework. Religion can be dangerous. So can atheism and agnosticism. So can life. Still, we need to decide and attempt to live by the consequences and implications of our choices. Moreover, notwithstanding certain abuses, which would pertain to many areas of life, I submit that it is doctrinaire simply to assert flat out that religion, ipso facto, is dangerous, or for that matter, wrong. From a knowledge perspective, a questioning agnosticism would seem to me the more reasonable stance. Even then, “prejudices” are unavoidable. Hans Georg Gadamar as quoted from Truth and Method gets at this:
Prejudices are not necessarily unjustified and erroneous, so that they inevitably distort the truth. In fact, the historicity of our existence entails that prejudices, in the literal sense of the word, constitute the initial directedness of our whole ability to experience. Prejudices are biases of our openness to the world. They are simply conditions whereby we experience something—whereby what we encounter says something to us. This formulation certainly does not mean that we are enclosed within a wall of prejudices and only let through the narrow portals those things that can produce a pass saying, “Nothing new will be said here.” Instead we welcome just that guest who promises something new to our curiosity.
BD: Why criticize Dewey for not reading theologians if he knew that they supported the concept of a supernatural God? Do you think if he had (assuming he didn’t) it would that have invalidated his position?
GD: If religion was his topic of focus why wouldn’t he take a serious look at what various contemporary theologians have written? By not doing so he severely limited the range of the scope of his probing. In terms of your second question, it could have even strengthened his argument, but in any event would have forced him to have made his case in response to 20th century theological perspectives of some substantive worth rather than the straw men of his caricature. He might have been re-converted. While this may seem facetious, the prospect is based on the assumption that Dewey, at some level repressed, or at least profoundly sublimated the obligation of knowledge of God, which, if he lent his mind, heart, strength, and soul to it an empathetic reading of Barth’s, The Epistle to the Romans http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195002946/103-0467076-4409414?v=glance&n=283155 might have re-ignited. Greater miracles of such reversals have been known to have happened. Of course, by that time Dewey was in his anti-German phase, but that’s another matter that Jim Good describes in the last chapter of his excellent new book, A Search for Unity in Diversity: The “Permanent Hegelian Deposit” in the Philosophy of John Dewey.
BD: Did Barth publish empirical data?
GD: I’m not sure. I suppose that would depend in part on definition. I can say that in his multi-volume theological texts he examined a great many topics in considerable detail and knew a fair amount about the intellectual currents of his time, particularly Feurbach Marx, Nietzche, and Freud, as well as the prevailing tenets Protestant liberalism, both of which his “neo-orthodox” faith sought to address. Perhaps he was empirically-focused based on the subject matter of his topic, in an analogous way, say to Dewey’s best works http://www.island-of-freedom.com/BARTH.HTM.
BD: Your position reminds me of Dosteovky’s “Grand Inquisitor” who told Jesus the people needed someone to tell them what to do. Dewey would say we should persuade people to think clearly without bias, then enough people would accept the best morality of the situation. Dewey had trust in the common people.
GD: Christianity is a lot more complex than that, which includes very clear thinking, personal responsibility, and highly focused commitment. In terms of bias, at some level, in the Gadamerian sense, it is unavoidable, which is obviously the case with Dewey. Specifically, he had a bias toward naturalism and a bias against revealed religion, including the religion in which he was raised, and which at least partially formed his early adulthood, a viewpoint capsulated in his talk on “The Obligation of Knowledge of God.” A fair reading of the New Testament would show a Christian vision. in which the world was turned upside down. The Kingdom of God as preached by Jesus the Christ is anything but elitist, a reversal Nietzsche could not grasp, particularly in his analysis of Paul. While Christ and the early church preached to and healed the poor Jesus did not romanticize them. Rather, he brought “good news” to rich and poor alike, but only by entering into the kingdom that he preached, by the narrow gate.
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