The Emperor's New Cloths: the Atheist Version

By way of Underverse, I just came across an interesting defense of Richard Dawkins, written a few years ago, by PZ Myers of Pharyngula, titled the courtier’s reply.

Myers retells the story of the Emperor's New Cloths in the following fashion:

I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion; Dawkins cavalierly dismisses them all. He even laughs at the highly popular and most persuasive arguments of his fellow countryman, Lord D. T. Mawkscribbler, who famously pointed out that the Emperor would not wear common cotton, nor uncomfortable polyester, but must, I say must, wear undergarments of the finest silk.
Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity.
Personally, I suspect that perhaps the Emperor might not be fully clothed — how else to explain the apparent sloth of the staff at the palace laundry — but, well, everyone else does seem to go on about his clothes, and this Dawkins fellow is such a rude upstart who lacks the wit of my elegant circumlocutions, that, while unable to deal with the substance of his accusations, I should at least chide him for his very bad form.

Until Dawkins has trained in the shops of Paris and Milan, until he has learned to tell the difference between a ruffled flounce and a puffy pantaloon, we should all pretend he has not spoken out against the Emperor's taste. His training in biology may give him the ability to recognize dangling genitalia when he sees it, but it has not taught him the proper appreciation of Imaginary Fabrics.

While this argument should give one pause before replying to Dawkins type attacks on theology with a simple” how dare he,” I think Myers, like Dawkins, misses the point. It is one thing to attack theism; intelligent people acting in good faith are going to have different opinions as to the validity of the cosmological, the teleological, the ontological and other such arguments for the existence of God. Apart from this, there is also the separate issue of how one treats the various theologians throughout history, who have argued for the existence of God and have built systems of thought around the hypothesis that there is a God. One can reject the claim that God exists, yet still treat those who believed in God with respect.

As a historian it is of the upmost importance to me that we treat that we study with respect. This applies even to people whose values we disagree with. I do a lot of work dealing on medieval and Early Modern Christian mysticism and scholarship. I have no interest in attacking mystics such as Bridget of Sweden and Teresa de Avila or scholars such as Adrian Reland and Johannes Meyer. Nor do I have any interest in explaining them away through some cheap patronizing form psychological analysis. I want to understand them on their own terms and I will always treat them respectfully as equals. If I believed anything less about them I would not be studying this field.

In this respect Dawkins is a threat not just to theism but to any form of credible intellectual history. Like the clergyman who believes that his high school science education qualifies him to talk about science, Dawkins seems to believe that his high school history education qualifies him to talk about history.

I would recommend to Myers and to the rest of Dawkins’ followers that they read the late J.L Mackie’s the Miracle of Theism. Mackie was an atheist and this book is a scholarly attack on traditional arguments for the existence of God. That being said Mackie treats the thinkers that he attacks, from Anselm to Aquinas to Maimonides to Hans Kung, with respect.

Toward Formulating a Jewish View of Jesus (Part II)

(This is a continuation of an earlier post.)

While all that I have said previously is true, it does not really address the core issue. The very question of what role does Jesus play within Judaism or how do Jews view Jesus is predicated on the assumption that Jesus plays some sort of role within Judaism. The truth of the matter is that Jesus, from a strictly theological perspective,[1] plays no role within Judaism. This, it should be pointed out, is different from Islam where Jesus, even though he is not viewed as divine, is venerated as a prophet.

While this notion that, from the perspective of Judaism, Jesus is irrelevant may seem to be almost a tautology, internalizing this concept, in practice, would require many Christians to rethink how they approach Judaism. Traditional Christian thought views Jews through the lens of their rejection of Jesus; Jews are people who do not accept Jesus and therefore continue to practice Mosaic Law. A more helpful way of looking at Judaism would be to say that Judaism believes in the Old Testament and Mosaic Law. This strict adherence to the Old Testament has had a profound effect on how Judaism has evolved; one such effect is that Jews do not accept the divinity of Jesus nor do they believe that he superseded the Law.

Viewing Judaism from the perspective of their rejection of Jesus makes it very difficult to understand Judaism as it forces one to always view Judaism within the context of Christianity. This leads to a rather unhelpful line of discourse. Why do Jews reject Jesus? Why would someone continue to practice Mosaic Law; don’t they know that it has already been fulfilled by Jesus? Don’t Jews know that the Old Testament predicted the coming of Jesus? How can Jews simply believe in the God of the Old Testament, who judges and punishes, and reject the love and forgiveness that is Jesus? This line of questioning ultimately leads to a caricature of Judaism as this inflexible, close-minded religion, built around law and judgment, with no sense of love and forgiveness.

In order to understand Judaism, one must be willing to understand it on its own terms. In order to do this one must come with a very different set of questions. How do Jews read the Old Testament? What role does Mosaic Law play within Judaism? How do Jews understand God? What does Monotheism mean for the Judaism? How do Jews understand Messianism? Most importantly one has to ask the question: how have Jews throughout the ages understood their Judaism and how have they struggled with each other over this matter? Such a line of questions would allow a person to formulate a more nuanced view of Jews and Judaism. Judaism can become something more than just a straw-man for Christian polemicists, something that exists in its own right and has its own legitimacy.

An excellent example of such an inquiry is Judaism by Hans Kung. This book, by a Catholic theologian, has to be counted as one of the best one-volume works about Judaism out there. As I Jew I must acknowledge that Kung treats Judaism with near perfect fairness. I challenge any Jew out there to write a book about Christianity that treats it with equal fairness. Kung wrote this book to teach Christians about Judaism in order to further the cause of ecumenical dialogue. He also wrote a book on Islam.

[1] The figure of Jesus has traditionally played a very important cultural role for European Jews. Many Jewish customs have elements in them that were meant as social polemics against Christianity.