The Paradox of Classical Liberalism

 

A strength of classical liberalism is that it is not supposed to be a positive value system. Instead, classical liberalism is meant to function as a structure from which one can reform existing societies. For example, classical liberals can reform societies so that they are less prone to use violence against women along with various ethnic or sexual minority groups. We call this negative liberty. You have the right to be protected against those wishing to cause you physical harm and that is the limit of your rights. It is a simple belief that can easily be explained to anyone of any race or creed and it is a profound concept that can uplift those societies where people take it to heart. This strength of classical liberalism is also a weakness. Classical liberalism, in of itself, is an empty ideology. It can oppose various visible forms of oppression but it cannot offer a positive alternative. In a classical liberal society, people should be free to pursue their own good in their own way as long as they are not causing physical harm to others. That being said, what should classical liberals actually do once they have learned to stop beating people up for looking different or believing in the wrong things?

One might say that classical liberals should become scientists and philosophers, using their reason to better comprehend the universe. Such pursuits, though, only make sense within a particular society. Consider the example of Socrates. Socrates may have believed that only the examined life was worth living but he was also someone whose life only had meaning within Athenian society. For this reason, Socrates refused to flee Athens and instead stayed to drink hemlock. Without Athens, Socrates was simply someone with a talent for deconstructing ideas; he might as well be dead.    

Whether it is a city or a religious community, classical liberalism is always going to be dependent on something outside of itself that is likely going to exist in tension with it. For example, I am both a classical liberal and a traditionally observant Jew. This is not a contradiction in the sense that I am not trying to force my Judaism on anyone else. I honestly have no interest in murdering homosexuals or even Amalekites. That being said, clearly, Judaism is not the same thing as classical liberalism. Furthermore, it is Judaism that controls how I live my day-to-day life. Classical liberalism is limited to an abstract philosophy to think about. It lacks the power of leather boxes to tie onto my biceps and on top of my head.  

The temptation is for classical liberalism to attempt to attach positive values to itself and claim the existence of positive liberty. For example, there is a difference between not beating up transgender students and a public school actively celebrating that student's life choices and handing out puberty blockers without parental consent. The problem is that the moment liberalism becomes a positive set of beliefs, it loses its moral high ground and simply becomes one more cultural system. It no longer is something that everyone can embrace, no matter their background, as part of their inheritance as rational human beings. This kind of liberalism is particularly dangerous because it still thinks of itself as something universal even as it has become a particular creed. This eliminates the checks that stop it from becoming totalitarian. 

If you believe that LGBTQs truly have the right to receive active positive acceptance from everyone, then you have signed on to murder anyone clinging to conservative religious values. If LGBTQs must be given acceptance and religious conservatives will not give it then the only option left is to "lovingly" murder those religious conservatives so we can have a world without "hate." 

As long as liberalism is merely the support of negative liberty to not initiate physical violence, there is no problem if we expect everyone to live by it. Do not start fights with us and we will not start fights with you. Alternatively, if liberalism is a particular creed that is only meant for "WEIRD" people on college campuses that would also be fine as there would be no reason for liberals to bother anyone else. The problem becomes when liberalism tries to be both; you then have a license to try to refashion the world according to your creed. If that means killing people then so be it.   

Consider the example of Judaism and Christianity. One of the benefits of Judaism is precisely that it is a particular creed. God entered into a covenant and offered a set of commandments to a particular group of people and not anyone else. Beyond preaching ethical monotheism, Judaism has no universal message to convert the world to. More importantly, there are no particular rituals that non-Jews need to perform. It is right and good that members of the Bahai religion continue to be Bahai. There is no good reason to try to convert them to Judaism so I am under no obligation to try. The Bahai do not have to be circumcised or celebrate the Sabbath. Christianity, by contrast, suffers from being a universalist religion. If Jesus died for the sins of the entire world, then Christians have an obligation to baptize the Bahai in his name and are not free to live and let live. Even if Judaism is not enough to make someone a classical liberal it clearly offers fewer temptations to stray from that path. 

Classical liberalism's limited vision for itself also applies to science. The power of science is precisely that it is not meant as an all-encompassing doctrine. It is merely a tool for explaining the world that does not even claim to always be right but simply leads to productive results in the long run. This allows science to be taken up by any culture because there is no contradiction between being a practicing scientist and going home and pursuing any lifestyle. Granted that a society that values science will eventually experience benefits beyond new technology. That being said, science is not a complete value system in itself and any scientist who claims otherwise, regardless of the moral value of their system, has ceased practicing science. 

There is a place for universal ideas for people in all times and places and particularist ideas for some people in some situations. Universal ideas may be the grand important ones but it is also their very nobility that limits them. To live our lives, we need particular ideas that we can bring down to our level. Unlike Judaism, classical liberalism is for everyone precisely because it is not a guide for actual living. Think of it as an invitation. Reject violence and embrace reason. The world that arises will contain many surprises but there should be a place for what is truly important to you.  

The Fall of Community and the Rise of Secular Modernity

Previously, I criticized C. S. Lewis for his argument that modernity took away people's ability to judge objective truths and make life-changing positions because they believed that something was true. What I believe was missing from that argument is the role of community. Modernity is important in the rise of secularism not because people stopped judging arguments objectively, they never were good at that in the first place, but that modernity broke down traditional community authority. This flipped the incentives when it came to religion. Where once people's lived experiences made it almost impossible not to be at least somewhat religious, now people live in a secular reality that makes it quite difficult for them to be religious. 

The importance of communal authority is most obvious when dealing with Judaism as the Jewish experience with modernity (at least in Europe) involved fairly clear-cut moments where communal authority broke down. Jews went from being members of their local kehilla to being citizens of a country, leading to rapid secularization during the following generation. The Christian experience of modernity provides fewer clean breaks with religious authority, the French and Russian Revolutions being the obvious exceptions. That being said, the practical implications of the modern breakdown of community, once it happened, are relevant to Christians as well.  

It is the combination of community and ideas that forces people to make life-altering decisions. If you grow up within a particular faith community, you might be very smart and be able to come up with all kinds of challenging arguments against your religion. That being said, as long as an alternative community with a superior doctrine does not exist, then it is unlikely for a formal break to happen. One thinks of the tragic life of Uriel da Costa, who fled Catholic Portugal only to find that the rabbinic Judaism of Amsterdam did not suit him either. He found himself caught in a cycle of being excommunicated for heresy and humiliating himself in order to get the community to take him back. Eventually, he committed suicide. Most people are going to avoid such a fate by accepting the parts of their religion they can accept while quietly placing anything else as beyond their understanding. 

Take away the sense of a religious community and two things happen. One, our person likely will have encountered an anti-religious ideology with which to argue against any argument for religion we might wish to make. Two, even if you get past his arguments, as long as our person has no religious community, your arguments for religion will never get past the level of an interesting theory that does not need to be put into practice. Before modernity, it was unbelief that had to get past people's lived experiences and, as such, even the best arguments against religion could be dismissed as interesting theories with no relevance to "reality." Now it is religion that has to scale that wall of people's lived experience in a secular world where the a priori assumptions of the game are fixed against religion.  

The problem of community helps us understand the challenge of science and other academic disciplines. For many people, science offers a kind of objective truth. Even if particular claims of science can be refuted, the scientific method carries authority as something against which other truths are going to be judged. It is very easy to make a convincing case for Genesis if there are no ready alternatives competing for the person's attention. Introduce evolution and the mere fact that it exists as an alternative explanation makes it harder to accept Genesis as an absolute. This becomes all the more so once we accept evolution as part of science and come to see science as fundamental to how we understand the world.

From this perspective, it does not matter if I reconcile Genesis with evolution. The moment dinosaurs living millions of years ago become something to take more seriously than a literal Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, my religion is going to be critically hobbled. As my brain becomes filled with all sorts of things from science, math, and history that I honestly believe in at the bottom of my heart, the religious truths I hold are going to become pushed aside to the point when, even if they are not rejected, they become relativized to the point that it will not be able to make absolute claims over my actions. The only way to escape this trap is to undermine the very authority of the academic disciplines as a means of making any claims regarding even physical reality.   

Keep in mind that most people, myself included, are not professional scientists. Even among professional scientists, the number of people who are in a position to directly evaluate the case for evolution is going to be small. It is likely that there are only a few thousand such people on the planet. Everyone else is forced to accept what such people say as a matter of faith. This is going to come down to a question of whose authority you going to accept. If you are part of a religious thought structure then it is easy to reject evolution. Scientists are just a bunch of power-hungry fools trying to convince people to reject the obvious truth of creation. This is in contrast to our wise and virtuous gedolim (or whatever your religious leaders like to call themselves). Once this is your a priori, it is easy to find evidence to justify this belief. The moment that science becomes the basis of your lived reality then the script flips and it becomes easy to dismiss any objections to evolution as religious backwardness.   

To be clear, when I talk about secularism, I do not necessarily mean that people become outright atheists. Religion can still survive as a social hobby that people attend to on a weekly basis. This does not change the fact that such people still live in a secular reality. Religion, no longer the full-time lived experience, is pushed to the margins with little hope of reaching the next generation let alone the wider society. 

Science and Torah: Is a Society of Torah Scientists Possible?

This past Shabbat, I attended a Shabbaton hosted by the Chabad of Pasadena. It featured Dr. Mickael Chekroun, an atmospheric scientist at UCLA. He gave an address titled "From Particle Physics to Serving Hashem." (Why someone who is not a particle physicist would speak about particle physics is a mystery to me.) His main point was that it is possible to be a religious Jew and a scientist as you can count on science eventually catching up to the truths that Torah has already revealed.

Already, such an attitude makes it difficult for someone to be a scientist. Science is a method to be followed, admittedly one with a tenuous relationship to objective facts, and not a set of conclusions. A scientist is not a prophet and can have no inkling of where new evidence will lead. In practice, any evidence produced by someone that fits neatly into their pre-set beliefs must be discounted. It is the equivalent of a tainted crime scene. (Science does have the advantage over criminal investigations in that it is possible to redo an experiment as opposed to a crime.) As to the question of being a religious scientist, yes it is possible, but also completely irrelevant. An individual scientist can hold Jewish beliefs, but he can also hold flat-earth beliefs without it interfering with his ability to perform productive research. Since science can be reconciled with any belief system that does not point-blank declare the scientific method to be invalid, the fact that it can be reconciled with Judaism says nothing positive about Judaism. The relevant question is whether Judaism can serve as a helpful backdrop to a society of scientists, who not only produce legitimate research but also pass on the scientific method to the next generation.

Can Judaism produce a scientific tradition? It has long been recognized within Orthodox circles that it is quite possible to be a committed Jew without being Orthodox or even in any way observant. The difficulty is getting multiple generations of committed non-observant Jews. So it is only fair to ask the same question regarding Orthodox scientists. Dr. Chekroun might, today, identify with Chabad, but he is not the product of Chabad. (Much like Kylo Ren did not rise out of the Dark Side.) By his own admission, he already was a working scientist when he came to be involved with Chabad. Will his children become Chabad scientists? Rabbi Chaim Hanoka, the head Chabad rabbi in Pasadena, is the son of the scientist Dr. Yaacov Hanoka ztl. Like Dr. Chekroun, Dr. Hanoka was not a product of Chabad, but part of the early generation of college students, who became religious through Chabad. The Hanokas are a respectable Chabad family. That being said, none of Dr. Hanoka's children ever became scientists.

The fact that a person's biological children do not become scientists, in of itself, is not a serious challenge. Personally, I feel little at stake over whether either of my children, Kalman or Mackie, will become practicing historians when they grow up even if I am determined to give them the values of a historian. That being said, this issue of children helps us comprehend the larger issues of society and continuity within science. Contrary to popular perception, science is a social process. Science is not about individuals performing experiments. Science happens when those experiments are repeated by other scientists including the scientist's worst enemies. A scientific community is possible because whatever petty personal rivalries might exist, everyone is committed to the scientific method. As with any community, the sense of shared values allows science to craft a covenantal tradition that binds the dead, the living, and those who have not yet earned their Ph.Ds.

Can Lubavitch (or any Haredi movement) produce a self-sustained scientific society? In practice, there are very real difficulties for any product of the Chabad school system to ever become a scientist. As a matter of principle, Chabad is against college. It might be theoretically possible for Chabad to create its own scientific institution to train Lubavitch scientists. Perhaps, something along the lines of the Vatican's astronomy institute. In practice, this is unlikely as the scientific method is not something that you can dabble in. It requires a full commitment, the kind we usually associate with religion. A scientist with anything less is going to fall prey to having some kind of outside agenda. (This might explain why so many scientists are against religion. Science cannot afford to submit itself to any outside authority. This causes religion to be seen as a threat. Furthermore, the fact that science is such an all-encompassing commitment allows it to serve the kinds of emotional functions most people get from religion. Hence, for a scientist, science becomes a logical replacement for religion.)

This commitment that science demands for itself makes it different from other professions. It should surprise no one that, in the New York area, Orthodox Jews are a force to be reckoned with in Law and Medicine. This is unlikely to happen soon with any of the sciences as science is not simply a job that you put in long hours in the hope of being well paid and that demands no larger allegiance. (Note that the practice of medicine is not a science any more than being a mechanic makes you a scientist. In both cases, you are applying a set body of knowledge instead of attempting to acquire new knowledge.)

It is here worth distinguishing between applied science and theoretical science. Historically, the tendency has been for a theoretical science to proceed without any sense of how it might be useful, followed several decades or even centuries later by the applied science. The crucial science is the theoretical one. It is also the part of science that would be the most difficult for the Orthodox world to produce on its own. Unlike Law and Medicine, theoretical science offers little in the way of financial reward. Rather than helping fund those engaged in full-time Torah study, a society of Orthodox theoretical scientists would compete for funds. Even more damaging, such a society would demand that the wider community believes that funding science is equal to funding Torah in the sense that both should be pursued for their own sake.

Does any of this make a difference? The Haredi world can do quite well for itself simply by recruiting professional scientists for itself from the secular world. But what would happen, granted that this is an extreme scenario, if the Haredi world ever "won?" Say, maybe just in Israel, if everyone decided to become Haredi and we had to face the Yeshayahu Leibowitz challenge. Now Israeli science is going to be handed over to Haredim and, come the next generation, there will be no more secular kids, who became religious as adults to become scientists. What would happen to Israeli science? Historically, one thinks of the philosophical traditions produced by pagan Hellenists, suddenly in the fourth-century, falling into the hands of Christians and later to Muslims. Now we have no more pagans and we must expect Christians and Muslims to step in and do philosophy. There is some debate on the matter, but overall the fall of paganism was not good for philosophy.

Not that I expect Haredim to ever become close to triumphing, but this issue does indirectly have practical implications. As long as Haredim cannot answer questions like what will happen to science if they took over (or the police and the army for that matter), Haredim will always be a marginal group. Even a large birth rate will not help them as, in the long run, they will not be able to hold on to their children. Such practical questions, with their implied reliance on secular society, will do far more to destroy people's faith than any science lecture. 

I do not doubt that Haredi communities such as Lubavitch will be able to continue to attract scientists. I am also willing to charitably assume that Haredim are tolerant enough to put up with eccentrics in their midsts with an interest in science. Such behavior can easily be justified by assuming that these exceptional individuals have special souls, which require this particular spiritual diet. That being said, I doubt that the Haredi world will ever be able to produce a scientific society of its own that is not dependent upon the secular society it opposes. Yes, one can be Haredi and a practicing scientist. What the Haredi world will never be able to accept is a self-conscious organized society of people with the values of science and with the determination to pass those values on to their children (biological or otherwise).

Homo Deus and Ontological Naturalism

A fundamental concept in understanding the relationship between religion and science is the distinction between methodological naturalism and ontological naturalism. Methodological naturalism means that one operates as if there is no supernatural. Ontological naturalism is the actual belief that there really is nothing outside of nature. Methodological rationalist fields such as science and history must operate according to methodological naturalism for the simple reason that beings like God, while they may exist, cannot be analyzed using such methods. Now it is important to realize that this is not atheism or some kind of trick to smuggle in atheism. On the contrary, methodological naturalism stands as a major stumbling block to atheism as it requires us to acknowledge that science is totally inadequate for directly telling us if there is a God or not.

This is not mere theist apologetics. There is often incredible value to analytical statements that are not actually true but help us understand a field. A great example of this is the Smithian Man (Homo Economicus). Contrary to stock criticisms of economics, no economist, not even Adam Smith, actually believes that there are such super-rational and all knowing humans such as Smithian Men. That being said, imagining that such a being exists and asking how he might respond to particular situations has proven to be a productive starting point for economics.

To be clear, science may play an indirect role in promoting atheism. A universe in which the methodological naturalism of science did not offer adequate explanations for observable phenomenon (imagine if there really was something in biology that was irreducibly complex) would have a lot more theists. By contrast, if methodological naturalism really allowed us to understand everything about nature, leaving no more questions, then atheists would have good ground to argue that methodological naturalism offers powerful reasons for taking the philosophical position of ontological naturalism. God would then follow fairies as a being that we have no reason to hypothesize about and come to ignore.

Keep this in mind and you can dismiss most polemics from either the theist or atheist sides as nonsense. This brings me to Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari. In most respects, this is an insightful book if it were not marred by the author's willingness to engage in crude atheist polemics that casually jump between methodological and ontological naturalism.

According to Harari, evolution refutes the existence of the soul. Evolution is a gradual step-by-step process while the soul, for some reason, must be indivisible.

Unfortunately, the theory of evolution rejects the ideas that my true self is some indivisible, immutable and potentially eternal essence. ... Elephants and cells have evolved gradually, as a result of new combinations and splits. Something that cannot be divided or changed cannot have come into existence through natural selection.

... the theory of evolution cannot accept the idea of souls, at least if by 'soul' we mean something indivisible, immutable and potentially eternal. Such an entity cannot possibly result from a step-by-step evolution. natural selection could produce a human eye, because the eye has parts. But the soul has no parts. If the Sapiens soul evolved step by step from the Erectus soul, what exactly were these steps? Is there some part of the soul that is more developed in Sapiens than in Erectus? But the soul has no parts.

You might argue that human souls did not evolve, but appeared one bright day in the fullness of their glory. But when exactly was that bright day? ... biology cannot explain the birth of a baby possessing an eternal soul from parents who did not have even a shred of a soul. (pg. 104-06.)

It should be noted that if we are to take Harari seriously, we should reject the foundation of classical liberalism that individuals exist. We all might just be soulless byproducts of evolution but I would hope our collections of DNA and cells can count as distinct persons with rights. It is certainly not the place of science to say otherwise. As for the soul, any person of faith, who is already comfortable with the notion of evolution should also be open to the idea that souls might exist on some kind of continuum between animals and the divine. Alternatively, why not imagine that some kind of Adam with a soul arose at some point in history born to philosophical zombie parents. Like most religious people, I treat the soul as a black box and do not have strong opinions one way or another about its precise nature (beyond rejecting on monotheist grounds the notion that the soul can, in any way, be a part of God). The idea that science should have some kind of opinion on the matter strikes me as a bad joke on par with creation science.

The bad theology and even worse science continue with Harari attempting to prove that God does not disapprove of homosexuality. Following Sam Harris, Harari wants to turn statements of ethics or religion into factual claims, which science can then weigh-in upon. We are offered the example of the Donation of Constantine, which was used to make the religious claim that the Church was the sovereign authority over Western Europe. In the fifteenth-century, Lorenzo Valla, using historical scholarship and linguistic analysis, demonstrated that this document was a medieval forgery. So, according to Harari, Valla used science to refute a religious claim. Of course, neither history nor linguistics are sciences and their claims are far more tentative. Even if one accepts, as I do, that the Donation was a forgery. This is a relatively minor blow against a belief system that was likely based upon the normative position that the Church should have sovereign power. So some anonymous scribe had Constantine say words that are spiritual facts that he clearly believed in. Why should this affect anyone's simple faith in the Church's supremacy?

Harari applies this same logic to homosexuality. The ethical position that humans should obey God hides the "factual" claim that, 3,000 years ago, God wrote a book denouncing homosexuality, leading to the practical guideline that humans should not practice homosexuality. Harari then brings out the "science" of Bible criticism to demonstrate that this opposition to homosexuality is the product of priests and rabbis rather than the almighty. Harari ends with the retort that: "If Ugandan politicians think that the power that created the cosmos, the galaxies, and the black holes becomes terribly upset whenever two Homo sapiens males have a bit of fun together, then science can help disabuse them of this rather bizarre notion." (pg. 196.)

Textual criticism is not a science and any conclusions it comes to are going to be highly tentative (like any study of ancient history). Science and textual criticism can tell us nothing about the mind of God whether, assuming he was inclined to write a book, he might write the book at once while making it look like it was assembled over a period of time. Alternatively, divine providence might have manifested itself through a historical process of bringing together and redacting different documents. Taking this logic a step further, the history of religion itself might plausibly be a divine revelation allowing man to evolve into something more godly. Whether such spiritually enlightened beings will allow gay marriage or hunt gays for sport is something beyond the boundaries of science.

The problem of how a creator God can actually care about human beings at all let alone their ritual practices (whether gay sex or pig eating) has haunted monotheism from the beginning. Much like the problem of evil, science has been able to add little to what was already a serious problem. Keep in mind that, contrary to the Whig nonsense about there being a Copernican revolution to teach man that he was not the center of the universe, pre-modern Judeo-Christian Islamic theology already taught that man was not that important in the scheme of things. If several thousand years of theology has not made religious fundamentalists, whether in Uganda or in the Bible Belt, cautious about drawing straight lines between God's will and public policy, they are unlikely to listen to scientists.

 

Not Advocating for Vaccination - And Will Still Not Love Rav Shmuel

My good friend Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein has written a piece "Why I Love Rav Shmuel - And Will Advocate Vaccination Nonetheless" in which he attempts to distinguish between his personal respect for Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky and his opposition to his recent comments opposing vaccinations. According to Rabbi Kamenetsky: “There is a doctor in Chicago who doesn’t vaccinate any of his patients and they have no problem at all. ... I see vaccinations as the problem. It’s a hoax. Even the Salk vaccine [against polio] is a hoax. It is just big business.” While I accept Rabbi Adlerstein's general premise of distinguishing between opposing specific ideas advocated by a person and rejecting the person as a whole, the serious problems raised by Rabbi Kamenetsky's position force the thoughtful person to take a harsher line and view his "sin" as not merely venial, but mortal.

An essential part of living in a society (particularly a liberal one that values diversity) is the ability to create two circles of opposition. One implies a narrow rejection of a particular belief or action while valuing the person's many other worthwhile attributes; the other places the person completely beyond the pale. For example, I recognize that many intelligent people of goodwill support the expansion of government health care. I may oppose such a position, but my opposition, in no way, takes anything away from the positive opinion I hold of them in other fields. Thus, I would defend them to my fellow libertarians by saying: "you should ignore what they believe in regard to health care and just focus on the worthwhile things they have to say." Similarly, members of Hamas engage in social support programs within their community in addition to being terrorists. That being said, a critical part of recognizing Hamas as a terrorist organization is precisely that willingness to not draw a line between Hamas the social welfare organization and Hamas the terrorist organization. This would even apply to members of Hamas, who are solely involved with the social side. All must be condemned as terrorists without any account for any positive aspects. Hamas' "good" work does not lessen its evil. On the contrary, its evil is such that it makes it as if the good never happened. It is even possible that, under such circumstances, the good itself is transformed into evil as it serves to render the entire enterprise all the more perverse.

I must confess that I have yet to come up with an intellectually rigorous method for deciding who belongs in which circle. A step in the right direction would be to ask whether the problematic position directly affects other areas. For example, support for government does not directly connect to a person's personal charity. By contrast, Hamas' social welfare programs are all part of an ideology that seeks to destroy Israel. Furthermore, one should take into account the possibility of the positive being used as cover for their more problematic agenda. I am not worried that supporters of health care will use their personal charity as moral cover for their government agenda. By contrast, I do worry about Hamas using their social programs as moral cover.

Even if we lack clear lines, it is important that we recognize the existence of both people who must be tolerated despite their errors and those who must be rejected for them. There is not another person in the world that I agree with about everything. As my opinions on many issues have changed over the years, I do not even agree with my past selves. Thus, if I am going to live with other people and even with myself, I must be willing to tolerate the existence of at least certain types of errors. That being said, we live in a world in which there are truly dangerous people who mean us very real harm. Others possess radically different values and seek to build a society in their own image on the ruin of our society. Clearly, tolerance as a blank check that does not insist on something in return will quickly turn into a suicide pact that benefits only the least tolerant in our midst.     

In what circle should we classify Rabbi Kamenetsky? Let me admit that I take his comments personally on two accounts. As an Asperger, I have no wish for autism to be used in any campaign against the medical establishment. Why did Rav Shmuel have to walk shomer negiah arm in arm with Jenny McCarthy? Also, a number of years ago, I challenged Rabbi Kamenetsky on his willingness to offer approbations for works on Jewish history considering that he has no professional training in the field. I asked him if he would be willing to write an approbation to a medical book. He responded that he would not as he had no expertise in medicine. I tried to press him on why he did not hold himself to a similar standard regarding history. He did not give me a clear answer; I assume that, unlike medicine, he did not see history as a field operating based on clear rules to be mastered before wading into any discussions on the topic. The fact that Rabbi Kamenetsky has now placed himself in the middle of a medical debate means that he lied to me regarding his belief as to his lack of qualification.

All that aside, there are good reasons to reject Rabbi Kamenetsky across the board simply for his comments as they directly relate to larger issues of scientific methodology and ultimately raise questions regarding his commitment to a halachic process. If you read Rabbi Kamenetsky carefully, you will see that he does not merely reject vaccinations, but the scientific method as well. I recognize that more knowledgeable people than me worry about the health risks of vaccines and that, in theory at least, one might be able to make a scientifically rigorous case against them. Like most people in the anti-vaccination movement, though, Rabbi Kamenetsky foregoes this debate in favor of claiming that the scientific establishment is not only wrong but that they are engaged in a hoax; in essence that they are conspiring against the public. To claim a conspiracy implies a rejection of the scientific method as anyone who accepts this method must also accept that it borders on the impossible for there ever to be a sustained conspiracy in science. Instead of science, Rabbi Kamenetsky turns to the anecdotal evidence of an unnamed doctor in Chicago. Anecdotal evidence is among the most worthless kinds of evidence in existence. Scientific medicine requires double-blind trials. Rabbi Kamenetsky clearly does not believe this and, if placed in charge of a scientific establishment, would operate it in a very different fashion.

For the sake of clarity, let me say that I take no scientific position regarding vaccines. I am not a scientist and, therefore, am not qualified to have an opinion. As a non-scientist, who accepts the scientific method, though, I am forced to operate with the current scientific consensus on the assumption that it is the product of the scientific method. This is the case even though, as a historian, I am aware that any scientific consensus is subject to change. Even if I thought that vaccines were a bad idea, I would still be willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands of children for the sake of defending the scientific method by upholding scientific consensus even when it is wrong.

If we accept my argument so far then we should reject Rabbi Kamenetsky's authority on all scientific issues. This would mean, not only evolution but also anything regarding medicine. No religious believer in the scientific method can accept him as an impartial arbitrator as he operates under a clearly very different set of premises.

Let me take this a step further to argue that even those Jews with no particular allegiance to the scientific method should reject Rabbi Kamenetsky as a halachic authority as there is good reason to be suspicious of his allegiance to any consistent halachic methodology. We already know that Rabbi Kamenetsky has, at the very least, been passively tolerant of a trend within the Haredi world toward charismatic authority that certain specific individuals are subject to direct personal divine inspiration and should, therefore, be listened to. For one thing, this position makes a mockery of Rabbi Adlerstein's claim of the non-absolute nature of religious authority within the non-Hasidic Haredi world. Charismatic authority is as absolute as that of the Almighty. Furthermore, charismatic authority is ultimately contrary to halachic authority (even if believers in charismatic authority might be observant in their day-to-day lives). The moment you grant the merest hint of legitimacy to charismatic authority then you open a Pandora's Box in which any illiterate child can trump the most learned rabbis and every line in the Talmud merely by claiming to have received divine inspiration.

Rabbi Kamenetsky's comments regarding vaccines are relevant here because they strongly suggest that, at least when it comes to science, he does not believe in following any clear principled method, but relies on charismatic authority. Where else does he get the idea to take it upon his shoulders to contradict mainstream science relying simply upon his own authority? (This would be consistent with the common Haredi acceptance of charismatic authority when applied to medicine. For example, the Chazon Ish is widely claimed to have been a great expert in medicine without ever having studied medicine.) Normally, the further one goes from one's field of professional expertise, the more important it is to consciously rely on clear methodology. The reason for this is that, without professional training, the field's methods will not have sunk to an unconscious level to allow a person to operate on their instincts. If Rabbi Kamenetsky is so contemptuous of any methodology as a matter of principle that he would forego them when it came to a field outside of his professional expertise then we should assume that he has written himself a large blank check to do whatever he wants and ignores methodology when it comes to halacha.

Consistency demands that Rabbi Adlerstein make a choice between defending not only the scientific method but also the halachic process and sacrificing Rabbi Kamenetsky. Even though I believe that Rabbi Adlerstein is mistaken in not rejecting Rabbi Kamenetsky, I still respect him. For one thing, the food and conversation at his house are simply too good. He is a wise man and worth listening to. One can even gain some valuable insights from analyzing his apologetics on behalf of Haredi religious authority figures.

History 111 Final

Here is the final I gave my History 111 students today. It covers the mix of topics we covered this quarter, Cicero, Spartacus, Christian apocalypticism, the Reformation and religion wars and Giordano Bruno. Readers will likely get a kick out of my second essay question and the bonus. Like this blog, I do try to keep my classes interesting.







I. Identify (Pick 7) – 35 pts.

1. Millennium

2. Urban II

3. Crassus

4. Charles V

5. St. Jerome

6. Verres

7. John Calvin

8. John Hus

9. St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

10. Triumph





II. Short Answers (Pick 5) – 40 pts.



1. Was Rome a deeply religious society? Give specific examples.

2. Describe Tiro’s position in life. Do you see him as a victim of the Roman system?

3. Define martyrdom. What purpose does it serve a religion? In which periods did the Church encourage martyrdom and in which did they discourage it? Why?

4. What is the difference between a “top-down” and “bottom-up” strategy? Give an example of each.

5. Was Erasmus an opponent of the Catholic Church? What happened at the end of Erasmus’ life to make him appear so “dangerous?” Why did this event change how Erasmus was perceived?

6. According to Norman Cohn, what attracts people to “apocalyptic” beliefs? Do modern day Christian apocalyptics in the United States fit into Cohn’s model?

7. What were some of the popular beliefs in the mid 14th century as to the cause of the Black Death?





III. Essays (Pick 1) – 60 pts.



1. Giordano Bruno was a philosopher who believed in heliocentrism and was executed by the Catholic Church as a heretic. Yet at the same he was also very much a man of the sixteenth century. What elements in Bruno’s character make him different from modern people? Do you see Bruno as a scientist or as a magician? Was Bruno a skeptic trying to bring down Church dogma with reason or was he, like many in his time, a person of faith trying to work his way out of a religious crisis brought about through the Reformation?



2. Imagine that you are trying to interest either a powerful film producer or a mad king, who might chop off your head in the morning because he thinks that all women are naturally traitorous, in a story about Spartacus. Give me a summary of the story you would choose to tell. Feel free to take all the historical liberties you desire as long as you justify your decisions in terms of “narrative thinking.”





Bonus (5 pts.)

Why, since the 1960s, have many religious people (such as my aunt) begun wearing longer sleeves and skirts? Are they leading a revival to bring things back to the way they once were?

Stephen Brush on the Whig Narrative of Science

In response to my post yesterday about Dan Brown and early modern science, Lionel Spiegel pointed me to a piece written by Dr. Stephen G. Brush on the Whig narrative of science in the introduction to his book, Nebulous Earth: The Origin of the Solar System and the Core of the Earth from Laplace to Jeffreys. In regards to the back and forth shift in scientific consensus between the monistic dualistic theories of whether planets evolve with or without the aid of stars, Brush notes:

For the historian of science, this uncertainty about the correct answer does have one important advantage. It undermines the tendency to judge past theories as being right or wrong by modern standards. This tendency is the so called "Whig interpretation of the history of science" that one usually finds in science textbooks and popular articles. The Whig approach is to start from the present theory, assuming it to be correct, and ask how we got there. For many scientists this is the only reason for studying history at all. ...
But Whiggish history is not very stisfactory if it has to be rewritten every time the "correct answer" changes. Instead, we need to look at the cosmogonies or planetogonies of earlier centuries in terms of the theories and evidence available at the time. (Pg. 4)

This tendency to judge by modern standards unfortunately goes far beyond science and infects the entire stream of popular history, particularly all discussions about women and the interactions of people of different races or creeds. It is meaningless to talk about whether women in different societies were more free or less free or whether certain societies were "tolerant." The real questions that should be asked are what circumstances lead to more hierarchical or egalitarian relations with the underlying assumption that there are no better or worse system just different equally reasonable reactions to different circumstances.

Thanks But No Thanks to Dan Brown for His Early Modern Science

Over this weekend I finally got around to reading Dan Brown's Lost Symbol, the sequel to the Da Vinci Code. I certainly expected a predictable plot with Robert Langdon spending several hours running around a city discovering ancient secrets with a female companion while being pursued by a creepy mystically inclined assassin while pontificating on all sorts of historical silliness. At this point, I have come to believe that Brown takes pleasure in mocking us historians and that he sticks in historical absurdities just to rub our noses in the fact that most of the public does not know, could not care less and would gladly accept his version of history over ours. This time around, though, Brown actually managed to offend me. Perhaps it was because he brought his brand of historical silliness to my area of history and makes claims that really do have the power to cause harm if taken seriously.

Take the following conversation between Langdon's mentor Peter Solomon (Peter is a Mason so the last name is a play on the Temple of Solomon, an important Masonic symbol) and his sister Katherine, who ends up serving as Langdon's female companion in this adventure, for example:

[Katherine's] brother [Peter]  ran a finger down the long shelf of cracked leather bindings and old dusty tomes. "The scientific wisdom of the ancients was staggering ... modern physics is only now beginning to comprehend it all."

"Peter," she said, "you already told me that the Egyptians understood levers and pulleys long before Newton, and that the early alchemists did work on a par with modern chemistry, but so what? Today's physics deals with concepts that would have been unimaginable to the ancients."

"Like what?"

"Well ... like entanglement theory, for one!" Subatomic research had now proven categorically that all matter was interconnected ... entangled in a single unified mesh ... a kind of universal oneness. "You're telling me the ancients sat around discussing entanglement theory?"

"Absolutely!" Peter said, pushing his long, dark bangs out of his eyes. "Entanglement was at the core of primeval beliefs. Its names are as old as history itself ... Dharmakaya, Tao, Brahman. In fact, man's oldest spiritual quest was to perceive his own entanglement, to sense his own interconnection with all things. He has always wanted to become 'one' with the universe ... to achieve the state of 'at-one-ment.'" Her brother raised his eyebrows. :To this day, Jews and Christians still strive for 'atonement' ... although most of us have forgotten it is actually 'at-one-ment' we're seeking."

...

"Okay, how about something as simple as polarity - the positive/negative balance of the subatomic realm. Obviously, the ancients didn't underst -"

"Hold on!" Her brother pulled down a large dusty text, which he dropped loudly on the library table. "Modern polarity is nothing but the 'dual world' described by Krishna here in the Bhagavad Gita over two thousand years ago. A dozen other books in here, including the Kybalion, talk about binary systems and the opposing forces in nature.

...

The showdown continued for several more minutes, and the stack of dusty books on the desk grew taller and taller. Finally Katherine threw up her hands in frustration. "Okay! You made your point, but I want to study cutting-edge theoretical physics. The future of science! I really doubt Krishna or Vyasa had much to say about superstring theory and multidimensional cosmological models."

"You're right. They didn't." Her brother paused, a smile crossing his lips. "If you're talking superstring theory ..." He wandered over to the bookshelf again. "Then you're talking this book here." He heaved out a colossal leather-bound book and dropped it with a crash onto the desk. "Thirteenth-century translation of the original medieval Aramaic."

"Superstring theory in the thirteenth century?!" Katherine wasn't buying it." Come on!"

Superstring theory was a brand-new cosmological model. Based on the most recent scientific observations, it suggested the multidimensional universe was made up not of three ... but rather of ten dimensions, which all interacted like vibrating strings, similar to resonating violin strings.

Katherine waited as her brother heaved open the book, ran through the ornately printed table of contents, and then flipped to a spot near the beginning of the book. "Read this." He pointed to a faded page of text and diagrams.

Dutifully, Katherine studied the page. The translation was old-fashioned and very hard to read, but to her utter amazement, the text and drawings clearly outlined the exact same universe heralded by modern superstring theory - a ten dimensional universe of resonating strings. As she continued reading, she suddenly gasped and recoiled. "My God, it even describes how six of the dimensions are entangled and act as one?!" She took a frightened step backward. "What is this book?!"

Her brother grinned. "Something I'm hoping you'll read one day." He flipped back to the title page, where an ornately printed plate bore three words.

The Complete Zohar.

Although Katherine had never read the Zohar, she knew it was the fundamental text of early Jewish mysticism, once believed so potent that it was reserved only for erudite rabbis.

...

Katherine didn't know how to respond. "But ... then why don't more people study this?"

Her brother smiled. "They will."

I don't understand."

"Katherine, we have been born into a wonderful times. A change is coming. Human beings are posed on the threshold of a new age when they will begin turning their eyes back to nature and to the old way ... back to the ideas in books like the Zohar and other ancient texts from around the world. Powerful truth has its own gravity and eventually pulls people back to it. There will come a day when modern science begins in earnest to study the wisdom of the ancients ... that will be the day that mankind begins to find answers to the big questions that still elude him." (Pg. 58-60.)


First, let us deal with that little howler about the Zohar. The Zohar was not written until the late thirteenth century. It was not printed until the mid-sixteenth century. Christian Knorr von Rosenroth's Kabbalah Denudata, which translated large segments into Latin, was not until the seventeenth century. You have to wait until the nineteenth century for an English translation. I thought string theory dealt with eleven dimensions but I will leave that one to the science people. 

At a more fundamental level, I am concerned with what Dan Brown is doing to science. Now do not get me wrong, as an early modern historian I think it is important that people understand the odd paths that created modern science. Contrary to the standard Whig narrative, science did not come about from people waking up after a thousand years in the Renaissance and deciding to be rational once again. As Frances Yates argued, the scientific revolution came about as an extension of renaissance magic which turned to texts such as the Codex Hermeticum and the Zohar in order to "recover" the "true" religion of the ancients and their magical secrets. In my 111 class, I certainly enjoy teaching my students about Giordano Bruno and how he was and was not like a modern scientist. Under no circumstance though do I wish for the science people in my class to turn around and try to be like Giordano Bruno. There are good reasons why science evolved away from turning toward ancient texts and it should stay that way.  

I do not care if Mary Magdalene carried Jesus' baby. Trying to bring back early modern science does concern me.

The Real Cause of Any “Dark Age”

To continue with my previous discussion of Hypatia, to blame the destruction of the Great Library Alexandria and the consequent loss of the knowledge of Greco-Roman civilization on Christian intolerance misses the point. Regardless of whether or not Christians performed the actual deed, in the long run, this knowledge was doomed to serve little practical use and be consigned to oblivion for two reasons, lack of effective means to reproduce and transmit this knowledge, and lack of an effective government under which the transmission of knowledge might be possible.

The real tragedy of the Library of Alexandria was that the tragedy was possible in the first place. Yes the Library was a true wonder, housing the intellectual wealth of the Classical world. There was a fire in the Library at some point, possibly even several fires, and with it went most of that heritage. What you have to ask yourself though is how did it come to be that so much knowledge was in one place and just one place to be destroyed in a fire? In our world of print and internet it is easy to take for granted how easy it is to reproduce texts and gain access to them. Take away print and the internet and you are left with the labor intensive project of reproducing texts by hand one at a time. Even a lover of knowledge, without an organized network to reproduce texts and pass them on is going to be trapped into single copies. An individual, or even a local group, would lack the means to do more and why should they do they as single texts cover their needs. The problem of course is that this creates situations like in Alexandria, large storehouses of texts existing only in that Library. A true monument to human achievement, but one that could do little for anyone outside of the narrow elite with access to the library and was a sitting target for the next outbreak of violence to destroy it.

From this perspective, ironically enough, the medieval Church fares better than the Roman Empire as a protector and transmitter of texts. It was the Church which successfully built knowledge networks of monasteries copying down texts and passing them along, to which we owe our knowledge of the Classics. Of course the ability of writing networks is quite limited compared to print networks, which would not come about until the early modern period. Without print, any attempt to transmit knowledge could at best only prove a holding action to the inevitable ravages of time such as natural disasters and angry mobs.

Knowledge networks, particularly fragile manuscript ones, can only exist to do whatever little good they might do under the protection of effective governments. The Romans did develop networks to pass on manuscripts, even if they were never as systematic about it as the Church. These though, could not survive the political collapse of Late Antiquity Rome. This started before the rise of Christianity. In the long run, Christianity may have failed to stop the collapse, but it certainly did not cause it. Potentially rioting murderous mobs exist in every society just below the surface, waiting to do harm. This goes even for supposedly civilized ones like Montreal in 1969, when the police went on strike for one day, as well as Late Antiquity Alexandria, which lacked an effective police system in the first place. Under such circumstances the library was doomed. It was not a matter of if the Library would be destroyed, but when and what particular spark would so happen to do it in. This has nothing to do with religion, though religion is as good as any other fuel under the right circumstances. (See Slouching Toward Bosnia.)

Even if the filmmakers had been right about Hypatia and the night before she was murdered she had cracked the big secret of the Scientific Revolution, anticipating both Copernicus and Kepler, it is unlikely that it would have changed the course of Western history. No matter how brilliant Hypatia may have been she lacked a knowledge network to pass her ideas along and allow them to become relevant to a larger society. This could exist within the political chaos of the collapsing Roman Empire. Like the Library, hers is the tragic story of a brilliant but ultimately useless monument to human genius, doomed to inevitable destruction and irrelevancy.

Agora’s Two Acts

I finally got around to watching Agora. My friend Lionel Spiegel got a hold of a copy and so, armed with popcorn, we got ready to wage merciless Mystery Science Theater 3000 against the movie's Whig biases. Agora tells the story of the female pagan philosopher Hypatia, who was murdered by a Christian mob, and the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria at the hands of Christians. I therefore expected a highly simplistic movie with virtuous enlightened pagans living in paradise and vicious intolerant Christians ruining everything and bringing about the "Dark Ages." I must admit, though, that the movie turned out much better than the trailers had led me to expect, managing for the most part to be fair to the actual historical events. This is until the second act of the film.

First off, full credit has to be given to the set designers for their breathtaking reconstruction of late fourth century Alexandria. This has to go down as one of the best reconstructions of a pre-modern city in the history of film. I was not even so bothered by the lack of mud; this still being the Roman Empire. Next, you have Ashraf Barhom's film stealing supporting role as the Christian monk Ammonius. If I had seen this movie earlier I would have tried showing at least parts of it to my 111 class as part of our unit on Christianity. Barhom's portrayal of Ammonius fits precisely into the Rodney Stark model of religious outreach that I presented. Ammonius preaches on the streets of Alexandria to crowds, picks debates with pagans and performs "miracles" (in his case walking through fire), but what makes Ammonius effective is his charismatic charm, which allows him to form relationships with individual people. This allows him to attract, not massive crowds in single dramatic speeches, but to slowly win over individuals, in the case of the movie Hypatia's slave Davus. This is essentially how I imagine Paul preaching and winning converts. Whatever you might think of his actions, this is a man that you like and can understand why others might change their lives around to convert to his religion and follow him.

Anchored by Barhom's Ammonius, the film actually does manage to offer a nuanced portrayal of Christianity, where, even if Christians are still the villains of the story in the end, there is a recognition that the world of late antiquity was not completely black and white. If the Christian mob ends up sacking the Library, it is only after the pagans' started the fight. In keeping with the narrative of the slow, quite non-dramatic spread of Christianity, the pagans find the tables turned on them by the unexpected size of the Christian counter-attack, leading one of the pagan leaders to exclaim: "who knew that there were so many Christians?"

If the movie had ended after the first act, I would have been on my feet acclaiming this movie as one of the greatest historical films ever, one that could allow Christians to burn down the Great Library of Alexandria and maintain some sense of nuance. The second act, though, with Hypatia's conflict with Bishop Cyril, leading to her death, manages to fall into all the Whig anachronisms I feared. First, there is Hypatia's grappling with the problem of the elaborate system epicycles, circles on top of the planet's circular orbits, in the Ptolemaic geocentric solar system. Even this is well done and worthwhile as a portrayal of the necessary thought processes on the road to heliocentrism. The fact that Hypatia is made out to be a heliocentrist is also not a problem, even if we have no evidence that she was, as the belief was found among the ancient Greeks. The film though decides to go one better and has Hypatia preempt Kepler in the theory of elliptical orbits, necessary in order to avoid the problem of epicycles. If you are going to go that far then why not have her ask why planets move in elliptical orbits and come up with Newtonian mechanics or even Einstein's Theory of Relativity? Then there is the crude misogyny of Bishop Cyril as he quotes Paul's Epistle to Timothy about the role of women. (Anyone who sits in smug judgment of pre-modern patriarchy without considering the inevitable logic of a highly militarized society, in which women do not serve in the military, has failed to engage in due historical thinking unfit to comment on historical events.) In keeping with this theme of misogyny, Cyril levels the ultimate patriarchal accusation of witchcraft against Hypatia even though the charge of witchcraft did not come into common use until the fifteenth century. (Sorcery is a completely different issue.)

No, we have no reason to assume that Hypatia could have jump started the Scientific Revolution in late antiquity Alexandria only to be stopped by Church misogyny. The story of Hypatia and the downfall of Greco-Roman civilization is tragic enough without that. By all means, go watch this movie for the first act; if you feel so inclined, try to stomach the second.

Are Humans Better Natural Theologians Than Cats?

Human beings make for modest natural theologians. Hand natural theology over to a human and what you get is an animated view of the world in which every physical object is imbued with consciousness. We know that we are living thinking beings, with will and intention; we can be bribed, flattered and convinced to follow one path or another. Such rules of the mind are outside of, though not contradictory to, the laws of physics. To use C. S. Lewis' example, the laws of physics can predict the motion of a billiard ball, when hit, as it moves across the table. What the laws of physics cannot tell you is whether I will reach down, grab the ball and throw it across the room. For that, you would need a psychiatrist. We naturally apply these assumptions of consciousness to the world around us; other people and animals are assumed to be conscious beings. Man, though, has traditionally gotten himself into trouble by making the perfectly reasonable assumption that the existence of consciousness should be extended to everything in the natural world. Clouds decide whether to rain or not; the sun decides to shine; the ground decides to give up its bounty. This leads to the conclusion that these forces can be convinced through bribery and flattery to act according to our wishes. Fashion this into a coherent system and what you have is crude polytheism. The rain, the sun, and the ground all become gods or at least manifestations of gods to pray to and offer sacrifices.

Correcting this flaw in human reasoning has proven to be a long-term project. Over the past several thousand years, starting since the union of Greek philosophy with monotheism, manifested in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and culminating in the Enlightenment, Western thought has undergone a shift, specifically away from an animated view of nature toward a mechanistic one. Today most people recognize that the rain, the sun, and the ground do not have minds; they are physical objects that operate solely according to fixed natural laws. Of course looking at how people yell at printers and computers would tell you that not much has really changed. (It is here, I would argue, that philosophical monotheism becomes important, allowing us to hold the line. We live in a world of physical laws authored by a deity. It is this same deity who has also created consciousness. Both exist as different, but equally valid and non-contradictory non-overlapping magisteria.)

There is a trap in this mechanized thinking as we risk going to the other extreme and believe in a completely naturalistic universe. In such a universe there would be no gods but there can also be no consciousness, no will, and no intention. I have had atheists tell me point-blank that there is no difference between me tossing an empty coke can into a recycling bin and the coke can moving through the air. That I think that I am thinking and making a decision to go green and recycle is simply an illusion; I too am just an object in motion, acting according to Newtonian mechanics. It cannot be overemphasized to the extent that the existence of consciousness is a trap for atheism, exceeding even that of evolution and theism. The moment I admit that we think and therefore are, we have to consider what we are. If our minds really exist and are not simply an illusion created by brain waves then we have to be something not of our bodies. We can conceive of existing while not having our bodies; we cannot conceive of existing without our minds. Call it what you will; mind, soul or spirit. Admit consciousness and you have accepted the supernatural and placed it as the foundation of existence.

That is how a human thinks. Anyone who has ever watched a cat obsessing over a piece of string or a computer cable can see that cats are natural animists as well. Cats, though, clearly have reached different and far grander conclusions from that of human beings. Does a cat believe in God? A cat has no need to believe in God; a cat knows that he is God. A cat thinks therefore he is … God. A cat looks out at his creation (whether or not he designed it, it clearly was designed for him) and sees a universe full of living beings, existing to serve him. What kind of God would our cat be if there was an object unable marvel at his greatness? Our cat keeps the universe in line by lording over creation and making sure he is properly worshipped by his creatures, giving them a good pawful smiting every once in a while to keep them in line and make sure that the universe is kept to its proper functions with him at the center. A cat, therefore, has no need to vex its minds over natural theology; it can leave that to simple more humble creatures, such as human beings. It is in human nature to wonder and doubt. Cats have better things to do, sitting in the sun and basking in the worship of all lesser creation.

Ungodly Words: Toward a Political Philosophy of Heresy (Part V)

(Part I, II, III, IV)




The Community Model leads to a number of interesting possibilities as to how heresy functions on a day-to-day basis. For instance, since the Community Model does not require a text to objectively be in contradiction of a statement of dogma, it would be feasible to claim that something could be completely true and at the same time be completely heretical without in any way denying the legitimacy of a statement of dogma. Take the issue of evolution for example. As most of my readers would surely agree it is theoretically possible to reconcile the claims of evolution with the opening chapters of Genesis, but one, with some legitimacy, could argue that even though the theory of evolution may not really contradict the Bible and may even be true; still the Jewish community cannot afford to ever officially admit that possibility. The problem for the Jewish community in doing so is that we would be admitting that the biblical text can and should be reinterpreted in light of the findings of modern science. This fact, while arguably true, opens up a Pandora's Box. What is to happen when Zayd wakes up tomorrow and decides that he is a "homosexual?" He will come to the conclusion that since science has shown that the creation story does not really mean what he was taught it meant in heder (religious primary school), maybe those verses in Leviticus do not actually mean what he was always taught they meant, now that modern psychiatry has "demonstrated" that homosexuality is not an illness, but a "perfectly normal" style of behavior. (Note that the concepts of mental "illness" and "normal" behavior are value judgments and thus outside of any empirical proof or demonstration.) In light of this "scientific" discovery Zayd could claim that it should be assumed that the verse "thou shall not lie with a man in the manner one lies with a woman, it is an abomination," (Leviticus 18:22) is not meant to ban "healthy," "loving" relationships between homosexual men, who technically speaking are not anyway carrying out relations with each other in the same manner as a man and a woman. (See Michael Lerner's Jewish Renewal pg. 324-327.) Rather the text is only meant to ban homosexual men from claiming that their relationships are equivalent to heterosexual marriage. Personally I think it is far more dangerous for Zayd to think that Judaism is against science than for Zayd to become an active Orthodox homosexual, but that is just me.

The central issue for me surrounding the Community Model is that if we were to accept this notion that texts should be defined as being heretical based on the decision of the community then the whole notion of heresy becomes tied to the issue of defining community. Without a clearly defined community structure there can be no heretical texts. For example one could argue that we, in this post-Enlightenment world of ours, cannot with any legitimacy speak of a Jewish community. While a Jew may belong to a synagogue, only associate with other Jews, and live his life according to Jewish Law, none of these things have any innate authority over him, as they once did. Any authority that these things do have comes from the willingness of the individual to defer to them. So in fact when the individual follows rabbinic authority or the standards of his "community," he is merely following the dictates of his own conscience. If this is the case then heresy becomes the broken staff of a deposed king. The fact that this staff is still being waved encapsulates in of itself the very nature of the power structure that wields it. It has ceased to exist yet it still thinks that it does, which following Cartesian logic confers its own form of existence upon it.

So I put the challenge to my readers. What would you do if you saw your fellow Jew reading a book titled: "There is No God. If There Was One He Would Be Four Beings, Physical, Not Eternal, Not Worth Praying To and Not a Talker to Prophets Nor a Giver of Torahs. If He Would Have Given a Torah He Would Have Changed it and He Would Never Have Bothered With Anything So Foolish as Reward and Punishment, a Messiah or the Revival of the Dead?" Would you try to explain to this Jew that such a book is dangerous and if so who is it dangerous to? Would you attempt to confiscate this book; if so, by what means and by what authority? Would you claim that this Jew is actually committing a sin by continuing to read that book and if so what sin has he committed?

Ungodly Words: Toward a Political Philosophy of Heresy (Part I)

A cardinal principle of liberal society is that there is no such thing as heresy or heretics; that the notion of a thought crime is a contradiction in terms. That being said the issue of heresy remains a potent one even in the West, though its implications may be somewhat different than in earlier epochs. In the past, when people spoke about heretics, they generally were referring to one whose beliefs lie outside of a given framework and as such is brought into opposition with those whose beliefs lie within that framework. In the modern-day situation, more and more we see that people can come under fire, not just for their lack of belief, but merely because they are open to an idea and take it seriously enough to raise it as a legitimate question. The sin here is not that they do not believe in a doctrine but that they choose to view it as a doctrine in the first place instead of as a necessary truth.

This conception of heresy is useful to explain the unfortunate fate of Lawrence Summers, the President of Harvard. He was attacked not for his belief that there are intrinsic genetic differences between men and women, but because he raised the issue as a question. In the eyes of the feminists who attacked Summers, his sin was not his lack of belief in the doctrine of the non-existence of intrinsic differences between men and women. His sin was that he failed to see this doctrine as an obvious and necessary truth in the first place.

At the same time this was going on, half a world away, there was the parallel story of Rabbi Natan Slifkin, who was attacked by the Haredi rabbinical establishment for being pro-evolution and for reading rabbinic texts allegorically. What was interesting about the whole Slifkin affair was that the main thrust of his opponents' attacks was not against the truth of evolution, though they definitely viewed it as a falsehood. Rabbi Slifkin was not trying to convince anyone to accept the theory of evolution, who was not already persuaded by the scientific evidence. All he was doing was suggesting a method with which to deal with evolution within an orthodox framework. The real issue was whether or not there existed, as Rabbi Slifkin claimed, legitimate trends within rabbinic tradition that can be seen as being friendly to evolution. In essence, the issue was whether one could, in the first place, take the notion that the theory of evolution is true seriously.

One is reminded of the Catholic Church's prosecution of Galileo in the seventeenth century. Contrary to common perception Galileo was put on trial less for his beliefs in heliocentrism than for his attempt to justify heliocentrism on biblical grounds (as well as some remarkably poor political judgment on his part). The Counter-Reformation Church was not particularly concerned with science; it was, though, at war with Protestantism. Holding beliefs about the natural world that went against Church teaching was a venial sin; attempting to support a belief contrary to Church teaching through an unorthodox interpretation of scripture was Protestantism. I might go so far as to suggest that Galileo's trial was not a remnant of medieval thinking, but the Catholic Church leading the way for a modern understanding of heresy.

I do not raise these issues in order to engage in pious liberal proclamations against the ever-existing threats to the cause of free thought; though I personally would rather deal with heathens, who openly proclaim themselves as enemies of free thought as opposed to apostates, who have betrayed the tradition. I raise this issue because I believe that the notion of heresy is and will continue to be an important part of our political discourse. As long as groups are going to be formed around ideas then the paradigm of Us, who believe, versus that Other, who does not believe, will exist to some extent and as such there will be Believers and Heretics. As such I believe that it is prudent to come to an understanding as to the nature of heresy and its role in society. I am not interested in defining heresy; rather I would like to engage in an exploration of the underlying rationale that allows one to go from saying, on a theoretical level, that if a text were to advocate ideas that contradicted dogma then that text would be heretical to saying, on a practical level, that such and such a text actually does contradict statements of dogma and is therefore heretical. While in doing this I will be dealing with this issue within a Jewish context, though what I say should, in theory, apply to any system of thought.

(To be continued …)

Liar, Lunatic or Leader of the Generation: a Jewish Trilemma (Part I)

I spent the first days of Passover with my Haredi cousins in Toronto. This part of my family is very close to Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky, the head of the Philadelphia Yeshiva and one of the leading Haredi rabbinic figures; someone often referred to as a "gadol" or one of the "gadolim." Rabbi Kamenetsky, as per his usual custom, was in Toronto himself for the holiday. He was speaking at a synagogue nearby so I went along to hear him. The speech itself was an exercise in radical theodicy, predicated on the assumption of direct divine judgment as the cause of all things. I view any discussion of divine causation in this world that does not openly admit to the existence of universal physical laws and place them front and center to explain how this world works as not only engaging in the denial of science but in heresy. It is not enough to acknowledge on the side that there is such a thing as divinely created nature. One does not get credit for admitting to what is right in front of their eyes. Science is the idea that the universe operates according to consistent laws, knowable to human intelligence. I see this ultimately as evidence of a universal lawgiver, whom I like to refer to as God, and a mark of godly perfection. A God who would operate according to arbitrary whims is less efficient and therefore, by definition, less intelligent and less perfect. As such anyone who postulates a God who fails to operate by simple universal laws denies God's perfection and is just as guilty of heresy as the Christians who would postulate complex schemes of salvation all centered on a nice Jewish boy being nailed to a piece of wood.

All this aside, what particularly caught my interest was the speaker who introduced Rabbi Kamenetsky introduced him as "the Manhig HaDor," the leader of the generation. Forgive my Asperger brain, but I take words very seriously and insist that they mean something. Carrying the unofficial title of "the leader of the generation" should imply certain privileges and burdens, not all that different than being an informal Jewish Pope. The leader of the generation deserves the utmost respect and may never be challenged or contradicted. Since the leader of the generation is the leader of all Orthodox Jews, anyone who disagrees with the leader is, by definition, outside of Orthodox Judaism. Since the leader represents Orthodox Judaism and Orthodox Judaism is always right, the leader must also be always right. Being the sum of human perfection carries a price, though, in that one has to be judged by the standard of human perfection.

C. S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, famously attacked those who viewed Jesus simply as a great moral teacher. If Jesus claimed to be the Son of God then he was either telling the Truth or he was a liar or a lunatic; on no grounds can he be called a moral teacher. If Rabbi Kamenetsky were to lay claim to being the leader of the generation then he would either be, if not the Son of God, then at least God's representative on Earth and the embodiment of the Truth of Orthodox Judaism or a dangerous egomaniacal insane heretic attempting to take over Orthodox Judaism for his own purpose. There is not much room for a moderate opinion. In contrast, the head of the Philadelphia Yeshiva and even a highly venerated rabbi can afford the luxury of being human, having imperfections and even of being wrong on occasion, without losing any of the respect due to a head of a yeshiva and a venerated rabbi. Of course, on the flip side, one can never ask "how dare you go against such a wonderful rabbi who heads the Yeshiva of Philadelphia." I never went to his yeshiva and he never was my rabbi.

When I wrote about Rabbi Kamenetsky two years ago, in what I admit was one of my more polemical posts, I received a fair amount of criticism. I found this amusing since even my "criticism" of him could only be called criticism if we were to judge Rabbi Kamenetsky by communal leader standards. Obviously, there can be no expectation that the head of the Philadelphia Yeshiva be able to address a general audience. Similarly, it would not be a criticism of me to say that I would not make a good grade school history teacher. I am a graduate student working in history and I tend to speak as if I were addressing other graduate students; there is nothing wrong with this. Of course, I am not in the running to be anything else besides for being an academic historian still in graduate school, certainly not "Manhig HaHistorianim."


(To be continued …)

Letter from Michael Makovi to Dan McLeroy

Our friend Michael Makovi took the opportunity of my previous post on Mr. Dan McLeroy of the Texas school board. To be clear, as someone who teaches history, I do not support the secular narrative of modernity and much of my efforts in teaching modern history are to debunk this view. I particularly support Makovi's argument about the role of civil liberties at different levels of government. I have used a similar argument about a sliding scale of civil liberties before. In essence I become less Libertarian the further down I go in government. For example while I support the legalization of drugs and prostitution, I would support the right of individual neighborhoods to ban such activity. In fact I would wish to live in such a neighborhood. I am willing to allow Kiryat Joel and New Square to run their own little "Jewish Calvinist Geneva's" and even to ban television and English newspapers.

Mr. McLeroy,

I read with interest the article "How Christian Were the Founders?" in the New York Times. As an Orthodox Jew, I largely agree with the general tenor of your opinions. I wish to make a few remarks, however, quibbling on some of what you and your colleagues say and hold.

I. Distinction Between Facts and Opinions

First, I believe we have to make a distinction between teaching history and teaching opinions. It is one thing to teach the unbiased and objective fact THAT the Framers and Founders were religious. It is an objective fact that the king of England viewed the Revolutionary War as a Presbyterian Revolution; it is an objective fact that New England Congregationalist sermons advocating revolution against Britain, printed as pamphlets, outnumbered all other publications in America, religious or otherwise, four-to-one. It is also an objective fact that the principles of federalism and democracy were derived by John Calvin and Heinrich Bullinger and others from the Bible, and that John Locke adopted these concepts and secularized them, and that Calvin and Locke together inspired the American Revolution. (See the cartoon "An Attempt to Land a Bishop in America".)

Everything I've just said is objective fact. However, while it is indisputable THAT Locke relied on Calvin, it is something wholly else to say that WE must rely on Calvin ourselves, or even Locke for that matter. Similarly, while it is an indisputable fact that Benjamin Franklin criticized Thomas Paine's denial of individual Divine Providence, it is something wholly else to argue that WE must agree with Franklin over Paine.

My point is that we must be careful to teach indisputable historical facts, and eschew offering our own opinions of what individuals ought to believe. I believe that public schools must teach the Christian past of America, not because I am myself a Christian (on the contrary, I am in fact an Orthodox Jew), but rather, because it is simply an unassailable historical fact that America has a Christian past. Let the public schools teach objective facts, and let students choose for themselves what to believe. If students wish to become Christians, that is their prerogative. But if students such as myself will choose otherwise (I have and will remain a Jew), that is in turn their prerogative.

Similarly, then, I would oppose teaching creationism in biology class. This is not because I, as an Orthodox Jew, disagree with creationism; I do in fact, on quite religious grounds, reject creationism and instead embrace evolution, but that is not the point. Rather, I oppose teaching creationism in biology class because creationism is a religious belief, not a scientific one. If you wish you teach the scientific objections to evolution, then that certainly is admissible in a biology class. But to teach religious principles in a science class is inexcusable. Rather, religious principles should be taught in a philosophy class. And even that, students should be taught the fact THAT many religious Christians advocate creationism. Creationism can be taught very accurately and faithfully, but it should be taught as a belief that some hold, not as a belief that one must hold. Similarly, Judaism and Christianity can be taught in dispassionate objection fashions, with students being told what these two religions say, without students being told to take any particular stance. The data will be provided to students but the conclusions will be their own. I, for example, am perfectly aware of what scientists say about evolution, and what creationists say in reply. Having all the relevant data at my disposal, I have chosen to stake my claim with evolution, on both scientific and religious grounds. (Again, my embrace of evolution is quite religious in nature. See, for example, Rabbi Chanan Morrison, "Noah: The Age of the Universe." Rabbi Morrison follows the approach of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak ha-Kohen Kook, one of the greatest rabbis of recent times, and revered by both the American Modern Orthodox as well as by the Israeli far-right nationalist "settlers". Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch of 19th-century Germany, arguably THE father of Modern Orthodox Judaism, has a similar approach.)

Therefore, the proper understanding of the First Amendment depends on societal consensus. If the society is wholly and entirely Christian, then the separation of church and state will mean only that the government cannot coerce one particular Christian church; neither Catholicism nor Protestantism may be supported by the government. However, Judaism might be seen as entirely beyond the pale, and subject to coercion and punishment. That is, religious tolerance is relative; one may tolerate other Christians but not non-Christians.

Rabbi Menahem ha-Meiri of 13th-century Provence, France, is famous for tolerating Christians and Muslims and saying that in Jewish law, a Christian or Muslim is like a Jew, and that the commandment to love one's neighbor as himself includes them. But even Rabbi Menahem ha-Meiri declared that atheists could NOT be tolerated, because in his view, anyone who denied reward and punishment was liable to murder and steal and commit crimes against society. Today, however, things might be different, and one might rightly follow the general direction of Rabbi Menahem ha-Meiri, and based on his own logic, extend his tolerance to include even atheists, as long as they respect the rights of their fellow men and do not commit anti-social crimes. So the separation of church and state is relative, and must be reconsidered anew in every time and place.

II. A Nuanced Understanding of Just What Democracy and Federalism Are

Second, I believe we need to have a nuanced understanding of just what democracy and federalism are. If we search for the roots of democracy, we find them in John Calvin and Heinrich Bullinger and the like, responding to Catholic monarchs and their violation of Protestant sensibilities. We find that all the major ideas of the Calvinists were adopted by John Locke, and that Calvin and Locke together influenced the American revolutionaries. Thus, the cartoon "An Attempt to Land a Bishop in America" could depict revolutionaries holding the books of Locke and Sidney and hurling Calvin at a Brit.

What, then, is the difference between Calvin and Locke? The chief difference, I believe, is that whereas the Calvinists and Puritans were quite confident in their own religious beliefs, by contrast, Locke wrote a treatise on religious toleration. It has been put that Samuel Rutherford wrote the greatest work in favor of civil liberties and the greatest work in favor of religious intolerance. The difference between Calvin and Locke is not in their political ideas of how the government ought to uphold rights and liberties. Rather, they disagreed on just what those liberties and rights were.

In premodern Jewish societies, for example, religiosity was taken for granted, and so murder and Shabbat violation were equally heinous, and were equally violations of morality and crimes against society. However, Orthodox Jewish authorities have recognized that nowadays, most Jews are lamentably - but through no fault of their own - ignorant of Judaism, and so one cannot view Shabbat violation the same way anymore. The non-religious will simply not view efforts at curtailing their religious liberties the same way as they once would. The Orthodox authorities will still wholeheartedly advocate Shabbat observance, but they will not longer coerce it. On the other hand, however, everyone still agrees that murder is heinous, and so everyone will agree that murderers must be punished.

I have made this argument a few times; see, for example, my

1) "The Death-Penalty in a Theocratic Israel"

2) "The Death-Penalty in a Theocratic Israel, Part 2"

My point is that democracy and federalism has NO substantive contents or beliefs. All democracy states is that the government can coerce observance of fundamentals of morality but that it cannot coerce anything else. But just what are the fundamentals of morality? For Calvin, this included every little tit and tittle of belief or practice of Calvinism, and so Calvinists could oppress Catholics just as Catholics had oppressed Protestants. But for Locke, the fundamentals of morality had to be reduced to some sort of lowest-common-denominator, viz. "life, liberty, and the pursuit of property". Any society can have whatever list of morals it desires.

Thus, one can have a Jewish democracy or a Hindu democracy or a secular democracy no less than one may have a Christian democracy. The innovation of democracy is that there is rule of law, that the government has the obligation to uphold rights and liberties and laws, and that the government is subject to the same laws as the citizens. Furthermore, on any issue which is not clearly spelled out (for example, the Bible says nothing about proper taxation rates), the will of the people prevails. But this is very subjective; one society will have a different conception of morality than another.

Therefore, for example: a Biblical Jewish theocracy might enforce Shabbat observance, while a contemporary Jewish theocracy would not. However, both Biblical and contemporary Jewish theocracies might ban Christian missionary activities in Israel, since Israelis today, even secular ones, are in general agreement that missionizing in Israel is unacceptable. If, please G-d, a religious revival in Israel occurs, then perhaps Shabbat observance will again become the norm, and it will once again become the government's prerogative to enforce.

Christians today are perfectly entitled to present their views in the public sphere, and let their ideas be weighed in the marketplace of ideas. If, for example, Christians can convince America that abortion is murder, then abortion can become illegal and punishable. But if Americans reject that abortion is such a moral fundamental, then the Christians will lose their case.

This brings us to another point of American history: if I understand the argument of Professor Barry Alan Shain's The Myth of American Individualism: The Protestant Origins of American Political Thought, then we must realize the following: government coercion becomes more conscionable the smaller the given society is. That is, it is more justifiable for a CITY to coerce than for a STATE, and more justifiable for a STATE to coerce than a NATION. The smaller the entity, the more government coercion and societal moral censure begin to become indistinguishable. If an entire city is staunchly Protestant, then it is very justifiable for the city to force Protestantism on its inhabitants. Government coercion and general non-coercive societal moral censure become one and the same. But as the society becomes larger, i.e. when we deal with states and even more with nations, then this becomes less clear. Perhaps one state is Calvinist and another is Catholic, for example. Government coercion becomes exposed and susceptible to the argument that the government is far-away in Rome, judging those alien to it. Why should someone in California be beholden to the views of someone in Washington? In a smaller society, one may leave and relocate if he is displeased. If you live in Meah Shearim, an Ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem, then you cannot blame your neighbors when they try to coerce you to observe Jewish law; after all, you chose to live in that neighborhood!

But if someone in Meah Shearim tries to force Jewish law onto someone in Tel Aviv (which is mostly secular), then this is evil. John Locke's concept of the consent of the government, especially tacit consent, becomes more real and authentic with smaller communities than with extended nations or empires. If I understand Professor Shain, then he has made this argument, but in any case, I independently made the same argument myself before I ever saw Shain; see my article, "Religious Coercion, or On John Locke and the Kehilla's Right to Assess Tzedaqa."

To return to the First Amendment: the First Amendment's separation of church and state must be understood as applying to different societies in different ways. Until the 14th Amendment was passed, the Bill of Rights applied only to the national government, but not to state governments. Thus, the Federal government could not respect any religions, but individual states could respect any given religion they wanted to. I think the principle is that the smaller the society in question, the greater its ability to coerce residents. In a small town, a fantastic and incredible amount of coercion is conscionable.

My point in saying all this, is to prove the following: it is one thing for you to advocate Christianity and Christian beliefs and principles, but it is something wholly else for you to force them on someone else. For you to coerce others to believe in Christianity, you must grapple with two factors:

1) The general status quo today; the more people agree with you, the more you can coerce the minority, but the more people disagree with you, the more you must acknowledge and respect their convictions and resort to persuasion rather than to coercion;

2) The fact that coercion is more valid in smaller communities than in larger ones. The towns of New England were extremely religious, and Protestantism was taken for granted in them as a basic fact of morality and proper society. But these towns did not try to coerce people in other states to believe like them. They instead used persuasion, not coercion.

As I said, this forces us to reconsider the First Amendment in two ways:

1) The separation of church and state depends on just exactly what "church" means to that time and place. In the 18th-century, perhaps this separation put all Christian churches on an equal level but condemned non-Christians as beyond the pale. Today, things might be different.

2) The First Amendment applied to the Federal government, but not to the states. The smaller the society in question, the more it can coerce citizens, and the more liberty can become positive and not merely negative.

Therefore, while it is an unassailable fact that America's roots are Christian, it is something wholly else to claim that therefore, America should be Christian today. You should teach students only the objective historical facts, and nothing more. Let me give an analogy: On Wikipedia, one may not give his own personal views, but one can certainly objectively describe another's views. Therefore: I may NOT,on Wikipedia, record Jewish beliefs as the truth. However, I may write that according to such-and-such a book by so-and-so the rabbi, such-and-such is what Judaism says the truth is. Therefore: the proper course, I believe, is to teach students only the objective historical facts. (I am speaking of public schools; private schools may teach whatever they want, since there is Locke-ian consent of the governed. If you don't like what the school teaches, you may leave.) Once everyone is armed with the historical facts, they may make whatever decisions they desire. If the American people then choose to make America into a Christian society, then that is their prerogative.

As an aside, I believe that everything I've written has proven that democracy and theocracy do not contract at all. As I said, democracy is a METHOD of enforcing morality, but it contains no concepts of morality itself, except for the beliefs that the government is accountable to the people and that all people are equal. Other than this, democracy is a METHOD of governance, but is utterly devoid of any actual philosophical or moral beliefs. Thus, you can have a Christian democracy, a Jewish democracy, or a secular democracy, for example.

By the way: the Declaration of Independence says far more than just "the laws of Nature and Nature's God". The last paragraph of the Declaration discusses Divine Providence, and as Professor Jeffry Morrison (Assistant Professor of Government, Regent University; Faculty, James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation, Washington, D.C.) shows in his essay, "Political Theology in the Declaration of

Independence," that the last paragraphs of the Declaration is perfectly consonant with Calvinism. According to Morrison, the first paragraph of the Declaration appealed to deists, but the last paragraph appealed to very religious Calvinists.

Thank you, and sincerely,

Michael Makovi

Formerly of Silver Spring, MD

Now a student of Yeshivat Hesder Petah Tiqwa (literally: "The

IDF-Affiliated Orthodox-Jewish Theological-Seminary of Petah Tiqwa") in Petah Tiqwa, Israel