Evolutionary Psychology then - yeah, doesn't have a great rep amongst biologists generally. I suppose the question of honesty depends on how evidence based you claim your hypotheses are, given the evidence tends towards the weak.
I don't think Creationists in the main know a lot about or object to ev. psych particularly. Their problem is more with anything that contradicts a literal interpretation of the Bible. They may frame it as a reaction to (un)scientific racism or whatever but a quick perusal of what they're willing to countenance if it does according with literalism (genocide ordered by or done directly by God, misogyny, hatred of LGBTQIA+) reveals this probably isn't their primary objection.
From the POV of the earlier discussion I don’t think it’s honest to conceal your real motivation for a criticism. As I’ve said, echoing James Barr, many Fundamentalists fight hard if they see their faith at stake. But not necessarily openly about what they are fighting for.
"they see their faith at stake" makes my teeth itch. Nobody ever unpacks that claim. "At stake" how, exactly?
"Faith" in what? Faith is something I give to something else. I show good faith, I receive good faith. Faith is not something that exists apart from a subject and an object, I think.
I'd also like to see this thing unpacked. And I think I've got the toolkit to start working on that, though not being one of them, I'm not sure it's entirely fair for me to be performing the operation.
No fault in being both a scientist and a philosopher or politician, but it's a mistake to attempt to derive the latter from the former. Science can tell you that the climate is changing, and that humans are changing it. It can tell you the likely outcomes of it. It can propose strategies to affect it. What it can't do is decide that those consequences are bad or good. They just are.
Agreed.
While it's not the same thing, I think I have similar feelings about religion. There are core religious dogmas that, appropriated in a healthy way, produce good outcomes. But when they're misappropriated or mishandled by charlatans, they produce terrifying outcomes.
The irony that a lot of charlatans loudly proclaim themselves to be the One True Scotsman is something I've struggled with for a long time. A lot of the best Christians I've known are pretty quiet about what they do, while the loud boastful ones tend to be manipulative jerkwads, thinly-veiled politicians, and shysters.
As someone who is trying to be a relatively honest Christian, it gives me some pause.
And similarly, while I can draw a pretty straight line from a simplified notion of evolution to eugenics, I think it's horrendous to blame scientists for eugenics without doing some serious social-political-economic unpacking first.
... And no, I’ve never encountered YECers in the wild. Pretty much the only place I hear about them is the Ship. ...
My experience is somewhat similar, though admittedly, I am in a different country, and one where this is not usually much of an issue. As far as I am aware, I have only met one in the last 30+ years. That is someone who is very committed to their faith, but with a tendency to be a bit batty about it in other ways as well. There is also a person who runs a wildlife park not all that far from here who is notorious for holding similar views, but I have never met him.
That said, though, back before I retired I mentioned to a work colleague who belonged to a small independent ecclesial household that 'the Rapture' was not part of the faith once delivered to the saints and that until about 175 years ago, nobody had even thought of it, yet alone heard of it. She was quite surprised. I did not get the impression it was a major part of her faith, so much as part of the furniture in that household. So I suppose it is possible for covert YECreationists to be more widespread than one realises.
"they see their faith at stake" makes my teeth itch. Nobody ever unpacks that claim. "At stake" how, exactly?
It’s quite easy to unpack.
“Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so”.
The Bible then counts as objective evidence. It counts as more important than personal experience (because human subjectivity is not to be trusted) or the assurance of Tradition (because the Reformation proved you can’t trust that.)
So for the Bible to be trusted as a witness, it must therefore be free from error. (And that’s the dodgy step of course.)
Yes, it can be close to biblioratry. But there’s more to it than that.
The more open notion, that the Bible does give witness, one might say inspired witness, despite the fallibility of its human authors, is just a step too far for some people.
it doesn't come close, it is biblioatry. Faith can't be certain because the nature of God is mystery. Any attempt to bypass that by devolving authority to a created entity, be it the biblical text or the church, or the body of systematic theology for that matter, is necessarily idolatrous.
it doesn't come close, it is biblioatry. Faith can't be certain because the nature of God is mystery. Any attempt to bypass that by devolving authority to a created entity, be it the biblical text or the church, or the body of systematic theology for that matter, is necessarily idolatrous.
I think in some folks I know, there's a political fear of "self" that comes down to a kind of Calvinist or Hobbesian* faith in total depravity. It's like, deep down, we're all monsters unless we're held in check by some terrifying hegemon. And for a certain kind of conservative Christian, that hegemon is God; and the Bible is The Rules that Keep the Bad People Like Us in Check.
So it's not exactly faith, I think, that gets people. It's the fear that if we didn't have God stopping us from being our jerk selves, we'd just be our jerk selves all the time. Some religious folks are afraid of the responsibility of having control of themselves, they're using "The Bible" as they understand it to give themselves a sense of control. Take that away, and...what's left?
All the shit they (we?) don't want to look at. And that's why, I think, a lot of religious people are so frightened of deconstruction.
Like I say, idolatry. Faith doesn't need deconstructing, because it's only ever provisional, pending the point at which we cease to peer "into a glass, darkly", but see "face to face". In reality there is us and God, and God in us and vice versa. That's it.
I think in some folks I know, there's a political fear of "self" that comes down to a kind of Calvinist or Hobbesian* faith in total depravity. It's like, deep down, we're all monsters unless we're held in check by some terrifying hegemon.
I guess I need to say again that total depravity, in a Calvinist or Reformed context, does not mean that “deep down, we’re all monsters.” That is a significant distortion of total depravity. (And as I’ve also said before, I recognize that the label “total depravity”—which is an English label that post-dates Calvin significantly—is partly to blame for confusion.)
Am I the only shipmate who really appreciates the recent posts on this thread? For many years, through university and after I met with the Open (not closed) Brethren. Many folk there disbelieved in the theory of evolution, or were creationists, but not aggresively so, and they never upbraided me as a biological scientist. It simply wasn't ever a problem. If I got scientific say, with my landlady she would pause and say, 'That's nice, dear'. Lovely people with whom I'm still in contact.
The fact that the distortion is so popular and prevalent tells one something about what people think of themselves. I'm not sure whether this is fear of themselves, fear of others, inverted hubris (we're just so much more wicked than anyone could possibly imagine) or what else, I'm not sure
Excellent post. There’s not a lot of difference between “total depravity” and “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”.
IIRC Calvin believed that any aspect of human behaviour could fall short. Again IIRC, the underlying reason for the argument was that it was in contrast to the arguments of some medieval school men that reason, as opposed to behaviour, was at least potentially some kind of “free zone”.
Or something like that, anyway. (I could be wrong!)
The fact that the distortion is so popular and prevalent tells one something about what people think of themselves. I'm not sure whether this is fear of themselves, fear of others, inverted hubris (we're just so much more wicked than anyone could possibly imagine) or what else, I'm not sure
Is it popular and prevalent as a view of self? I typically encounter it as an accusation of what “those Calvinists” believe. Yet I’ve never encountered it being taught in my 65 years in a Reformed denomination.
@Barnabas62, yes, you’re on the right track. What the idea labeled “total depravity” describes is the idea of the pervasiveness of sin—that there is no aspect of our lives that sin can’t and doesn’t affect, rendering us all incapable of saving ourselves.
"they see their faith at stake" makes my teeth itch. Nobody ever unpacks that claim. "At stake" how, exactly?
It’s quite easy to unpack.
“Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so”.
The Bible then counts as objective evidence. It counts as more important than personal experience (because human subjectivity is not to be trusted) or the assurance of Tradition (because the Reformation proved you can’t trust that.)
So for the Bible to be trusted as a witness, it must therefore be free from error. (And that’s the dodgy step of course.)
Yes, it can be close to biblioratry. But there’s more to it than that.
The more open notion, that the Bible does give witness, one might say inspired witness, despite the fallibility of its human authors, is just a step too far for some people.
I have always looked at it this way.
A. The Bible is inerrant, true, not to be questioned.
B. Therefore, the six-day creation is factual. No such thing as other creation stories in the Bible.
C. If the creation story is not factual,
D. The Resurrection did not happen.
E. We are living corpses.
F. There is no hope.
I grew up this way. It was not until my college years I had to deal with the fallacy of that line of thought.
Here is a much better understanding, at least in my mind.
A. The Resurrection happened.
B. We read the Bible through the prism of the Resurrection.
C. Therefore, the Bible is opened up to a wide range of traditions, forms, the way it was put together.
D. The Creation story can be seen as a poem/affirmation of faith. And there are other creation stories in the Bible too--they are not contradictory but complimentary.
E. We live in the Resurrection faith.
F. Hope abounds.
Several years ago, I read through Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible. Asimov treated the Bible as a historical document. I found it to be a useful compilation of historical facts in the ancient world. But he did not accept the Resurrection. His book helped to explain the world at the time the books of the Bible were written, but not its faith claims.
From my own reading of the Institutions I’ve always argued that Calvin was not a TULIP Calvinist. Too well argued, including nuances, for that oversimplification.
But thanks for the link in any case. There’s a lot to digest in the Institutes.
The fact that the distortion is so popular and prevalent tells one something about what people think of themselves. I'm not sure whether this is fear of themselves, fear of others, inverted hubris (we're just so much more wicked than anyone could possibly imagine) or what else, I'm not sure
Is it popular and prevalent as a view of self? I typically encounter it as an accusation of what “those Calvinists” believe. Yet I’ve never encountered it being taught in my 65 years in a Reformed denomination.
@Barnabas62, yes, you’re on the right track. What the idea labeled “total depravity” describes is the idea of the pervasiveness of sin—that there is no aspect of our lives that sin can’t and doesn’t affect, rendering us all incapable of saving ourselves.
I see it as being the ghosts in Plato's cave, the parts of ourselves of which we are most afraid, which we then invent a deity to protect us from. The deity is a projection just as much as the shadows on the cave.
The fact that the distortion is so popular and prevalent tells one something about what people think of themselves. I'm not sure whether this is fear of themselves, fear of others, inverted hubris (we're just so much more wicked than anyone could possibly imagine) or what else, I'm not sure
Is it popular and prevalent as a view of self? I typically encounter it as an accusation of what “those Calvinists” believe. Yet I’ve never encountered it being taught in my 65 years in a Reformed denomination.
@Barnabas62, yes, you’re on the right track. What the idea labeled “total depravity” describes is the idea of the pervasiveness of sin—that there is no aspect of our lives that sin can’t and doesn’t affect, rendering us all incapable of saving ourselves.
I see it as being the ghosts in Plato's cave, the parts of ourselves of which we are most afraid, which we then invent a deity to protect us from. The deity is a projection just as much as the shadows on the cave.
I’m afraid I’m confused. I thought you were talking about the Calvinist/Reformed idea referred to as total depravity, but I can’t quite fit what I said about it with what you’re saying. Have I misunderstood?
What I think I'm saying is that it is possible to get to a very similar thing to the caricature of total depravity without necessarily invoking Calvin. I'm not entirely sure, personally, whether the scrupulosity of Calvin and his circle was driven by Plato's cave shadows, but it wouldn't surprise me if they had a lot to do with the scrupulosity, and the bible was more a source of justification than of inspiration.
Excellent post. There’s not a lot of difference between “total depravity” and “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”.
IIRC Calvin believed that any aspect of human behaviour could fall short. Again IIRC, the underlying reason for the argument was that it was in contrast to the arguments of some medieval school men that reason, as opposed to behaviour, was at least potentially some kind of “free zone”.
Or something like that, anyway. (I could be wrong!)
That is my understanding. Human beings are a mixture of good and bad, and that goes right through, without there being some uncontaminated bit that even the cleverest or most virtuous person could rely on to get by without grace.
There was a brief period in the 1950s and 1960s when that again became important, with an over optimistic belief that somehow 'reason' was free of taint, that progress was irreversible, that 'mankind had come of age'. I seem to remember that there was a theological movement based, I think, in Switzerland but not specifically Swiss, that pointed out that this was still insufficient.
'Mankind had come of age' did not survive the oil crisis in the 1970s. I do not recall that resuscitating itself during the brief period of optimism at the end of the century when we were all told that history had come to an end.
On whether Calvin was a Calvinist in the TULIP sense, I'd say 'no more than Aquinas was a neo-Thomist of the likes of Ludwig Ott'.
I thought they were shadows presenting distorted images to chained prisoners in the cave of the reality outside.
Weren’t they supposed to represent ignorance, illusion? Those outside the cave who were free from the cave and the chains of ignorance and illusion could therefore see more clearly.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at. For example, do you see Christians as prisoners of ignorance, prone through fear to make illusory interpretations of the “shadows on the wall”?
Personally I think there are Shipmates here who are far from that dreadful fate. But there are certainly people of faith I’ve met who do seem to be trapped. Maybe you can say more?
Anyway, I didn’t personally read you as saying anything about Calvin and TULIP. Unless of course you see TULIP as a kind of chaining and a source of ignorance and illusion and fear?
I think in some folks I know, there's a political fear of "self" that comes down to a kind of Calvinist or Hobbesian* faith in total depravity. It's like, deep down, we're all monsters unless we're held in check by some terrifying hegemon.
I guess I need to say again that total depravity, in a Calvinist or Reformed context, does not mean that “deep down, we’re all monsters.” That is a significant distortion of total depravity. (And as I’ve also said before, I recognize that the label “total depravity”—which is an English label that post-dates Calvin significantly—is partly to blame for confusion.)
But I do love “Calvinist or Hobbesian.”
I think I'd agree, but I have also seen an awful lot of people who seem to take it that way. And that's why think they need some really hard, literal rules to keep themselves safe. It's a cultural thing, really, perhaps not properly devout.
Am I the only shipmate who really appreciates the recent posts on this thread? For many years, through university and after I met with the Open (not closed) Brethren. Many folk there disbelieved in the theory of evolution, or were creationists, but not aggresively so, and they never upbraided me as a biological scientist. It simply wasn't ever a problem. If I got scientific say, with my landlady she would pause and say, 'That's nice, dear'. Lovely people with whom I'm still in contact.
Oh yeah, I know folks like that. Lovely people, kooky ideas. Just be careful around certain conversations.
What I think I'm saying is that it is possible to get to a very similar thing to the caricature of total depravity without necessarily invoking Calvin. I'm not entirely sure, personally, whether the scrupulosity of Calvin and his circle was driven by Plato's cave shadows, but it wouldn't surprise me if they had a lot to do with the scrupulosity, and the bible was more a source of justification than of inspiration.
Thank you, and I apologize for my failure to understand.
With regard to Calvin, though, I would again wonder if the reference to “
“the scrupulosity of Calvin and his circle” is aimed more at popular perceptions (and maybe misperceptions) of Calvin rather than what Calvin actually said and wrote.
Like I say, idolatry. Faith doesn't need deconstructing, because it's only ever provisional, pending the point at which we cease to peer "into a glass, darkly", but see "face to face". In reality there is us and God, and God in us and vice versa. That's it.
'Us' being everyone? Or a particular group? Or ...?
I'm assuming 'us' refers to those beyond our particular circles or people we approve of.
I'd agree that it's easy to replace biblical fundamentalism with a kind of 'Church Fundamentalism'.
With all sources of authority we need a degree of elasticity if we aren't to throttle ourselves and others.
Comments
I don't think Creationists in the main know a lot about or object to ev. psych particularly. Their problem is more with anything that contradicts a literal interpretation of the Bible. They may frame it as a reaction to (un)scientific racism or whatever but a quick perusal of what they're willing to countenance if it does according with literalism (genocide ordered by or done directly by God, misogyny, hatred of LGBTQIA+) reveals this probably isn't their primary objection.
Yes.
From the POV of the earlier discussion I don’t think it’s honest to conceal your real motivation for a criticism. As I’ve said, echoing James Barr, many Fundamentalists fight hard if they see their faith at stake. But not necessarily openly about what they are fighting for.
"Faith" in what? Faith is something I give to something else. I show good faith, I receive good faith. Faith is not something that exists apart from a subject and an object, I think.
I'd also like to see this thing unpacked. And I think I've got the toolkit to start working on that, though not being one of them, I'm not sure it's entirely fair for me to be performing the operation.
Agreed.
While it's not the same thing, I think I have similar feelings about religion. There are core religious dogmas that, appropriated in a healthy way, produce good outcomes. But when they're misappropriated or mishandled by charlatans, they produce terrifying outcomes.
The irony that a lot of charlatans loudly proclaim themselves to be the One True Scotsman is something I've struggled with for a long time. A lot of the best Christians I've known are pretty quiet about what they do, while the loud boastful ones tend to be manipulative jerkwads, thinly-veiled politicians, and shysters.
As someone who is trying to be a relatively honest Christian, it gives me some pause.
And similarly, while I can draw a pretty straight line from a simplified notion of evolution to eugenics, I think it's horrendous to blame scientists for eugenics without doing some serious social-political-economic unpacking first.
That said, though, back before I retired I mentioned to a work colleague who belonged to a small independent ecclesial household that 'the Rapture' was not part of the faith once delivered to the saints and that until about 175 years ago, nobody had even thought of it, yet alone heard of it. She was quite surprised. I did not get the impression it was a major part of her faith, so much as part of the furniture in that household. So I suppose it is possible for covert YECreationists to be more widespread than one realises.
I probably move in dodgier circles! I’ve met quite a few, some more shy about it than others
It’s quite easy to unpack.
“Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so”.
The Bible then counts as objective evidence. It counts as more important than personal experience (because human subjectivity is not to be trusted) or the assurance of Tradition (because the Reformation proved you can’t trust that.)
So for the Bible to be trusted as a witness, it must therefore be free from error. (And that’s the dodgy step of course.)
Yes, it can be close to biblioratry. But there’s more to it than that.
The more open notion, that the Bible does give witness, one might say inspired witness, despite the fallibility of its human authors, is just a step too far for some people.
I think in some folks I know, there's a political fear of "self" that comes down to a kind of Calvinist or Hobbesian* faith in total depravity. It's like, deep down, we're all monsters unless we're held in check by some terrifying hegemon. And for a certain kind of conservative Christian, that hegemon is God; and the Bible is The Rules that Keep the Bad People Like Us in Check.
So it's not exactly faith, I think, that gets people. It's the fear that if we didn't have God stopping us from being our jerk selves, we'd just be our jerk selves all the time. Some religious folks are afraid of the responsibility of having control of themselves, they're using "The Bible" as they understand it to give themselves a sense of control. Take that away, and...what's left?
All the shit they (we?) don't want to look at. And that's why, I think, a lot of religious people are so frightened of deconstruction.
* No pun intended, but that's funny.
But I do love “Calvinist or Hobbesian.”
IME folks who subscribe to Fundamentalism do so with varying degrees of certainty!
Excellent post. There’s not a lot of difference between “total depravity” and “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”.
IIRC Calvin believed that any aspect of human behaviour could fall short. Again IIRC, the underlying reason for the argument was that it was in contrast to the arguments of some medieval school men that reason, as opposed to behaviour, was at least potentially some kind of “free zone”.
Or something like that, anyway. (I could be wrong!)
@Barnabas62, yes, you’re on the right track. What the idea labeled “total depravity” describes is the idea of the pervasiveness of sin—that there is no aspect of our lives that sin can’t and doesn’t affect, rendering us all incapable of saving ourselves.
Pervasiveness is a good word.
Total Depravity was always a misstatement. I’m sure it’s anachronistic of me but the TULIP shorthand needed something beginning with T!
I have always looked at it this way.
A. The Bible is inerrant, true, not to be questioned.
B. Therefore, the six-day creation is factual. No such thing as other creation stories in the Bible.
C. If the creation story is not factual,
D. The Resurrection did not happen.
E. We are living corpses.
F. There is no hope.
I grew up this way. It was not until my college years I had to deal with the fallacy of that line of thought.
Here is a much better understanding, at least in my mind.
A. The Resurrection happened.
B. We read the Bible through the prism of the Resurrection.
C. Therefore, the Bible is opened up to a wide range of traditions, forms, the way it was put together.
D. The Creation story can be seen as a poem/affirmation of faith. And there are other creation stories in the Bible too--they are not contradictory but complimentary.
E. We live in the Resurrection faith.
F. Hope abounds.
Several years ago, I read through Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible. Asimov treated the Bible as a historical document. I found it to be a useful compilation of historical facts in the ancient world. But he did not accept the Resurrection. His book helped to explain the world at the time the books of the Bible were written, but not its faith claims.
I’ll recommend (again) Richard A. Muller’s article “Was Calvin a Calvinist? Or, Did Calvin (or Anyone Else in the Early Modern Era) Plant the ‘TULIP’?”
From my own reading of the Institutions I’ve always argued that Calvin was not a TULIP Calvinist. Too well argued, including nuances, for that oversimplification.
But thanks for the link in any case. There’s a lot to digest in the Institutes.
I see it as being the ghosts in Plato's cave, the parts of ourselves of which we are most afraid, which we then invent a deity to protect us from. The deity is a projection just as much as the shadows on the cave.
There was a brief period in the 1950s and 1960s when that again became important, with an over optimistic belief that somehow 'reason' was free of taint, that progress was irreversible, that 'mankind had come of age'. I seem to remember that there was a theological movement based, I think, in Switzerland but not specifically Swiss, that pointed out that this was still insufficient.
'Mankind had come of age' did not survive the oil crisis in the 1970s. I do not recall that resuscitating itself during the brief period of optimism at the end of the century when we were all told that history had come to an end.
On whether Calvin was a Calvinist in the TULIP sense, I'd say 'no more than Aquinas was a neo-Thomist of the likes of Ludwig Ott'.
I thought they were shadows presenting distorted images to chained prisoners in the cave of the reality outside.
Weren’t they supposed to represent ignorance, illusion? Those outside the cave who were free from the cave and the chains of ignorance and illusion could therefore see more clearly.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at. For example, do you see Christians as prisoners of ignorance, prone through fear to make illusory interpretations of the “shadows on the wall”?
Personally I think there are Shipmates here who are far from that dreadful fate. But there are certainly people of faith I’ve met who do seem to be trapped. Maybe you can say more?
Anyway, I didn’t personally read you as saying anything about Calvin and TULIP. Unless of course you see TULIP as a kind of chaining and a source of ignorance and illusion and fear?
I think I'd agree, but I have also seen an awful lot of people who seem to take it that way. And that's why think they need some really hard, literal rules to keep themselves safe. It's a cultural thing, really, perhaps not properly devout.
Oh yeah, I know folks like that. Lovely people, kooky ideas. Just be careful around certain conversations.
With regard to Calvin, though, I would again wonder if the reference to “
“the scrupulosity of Calvin and his circle” is aimed more at popular perceptions (and maybe misperceptions) of Calvin rather than what Calvin actually said and wrote.
Thanks for the clarification, sorry about the cross post.
'Us' being everyone? Or a particular group? Or ...?
I'm assuming 'us' refers to those beyond our particular circles or people we approve of.
I'd agree that it's easy to replace biblical fundamentalism with a kind of 'Church Fundamentalism'.
With all sources of authority we need a degree of elasticity if we aren't to throttle ourselves and others.