[Oe List ...] A review of Charles Taylor's "The Secular Society"

[R Williams]

Friends,
 
I'm fresh off having finished Dowd's book.  Like most writers on this subject these days, from my perspective he gets a lot of it right, a lot of it wrong, ignores a lot of what I consider pertinent, and overall raises some very good questions to ponder.  I have no interest in, nor basis for, defending Dowd, but here are some of his points that particularly resonated with me.
 
For one, David, I believe he does exactly what you suggest in your last statement, he reconciles the conflict between religious faith and scientific knowledge.  It is no particular leap for me to say, for example, that the story of creation is stated in one genre in the Bible (which Dowd would call "night language") and another way scientifically (which he would call "day language"), the latter expressed with the word "evolution," but that both are talking about the same reality.  I personally prefer words like "emergence" or "unfolding" in place of evolution but believe they are pointing to same thing.  And a key part of his message is that what all this points to is still going on and forever will be.  I harken to the words in Revelation, "Behold, I make all things new," present tense with future implied.
 
Another, I have no difficulty with Dowd's calling God "Ultimate Reality" and find that not too far from Tillich's "ground of being."  Both insist that God is not one reality or one being among others, but the basis, foundation, context, etc. for all.  And the faith question in relation to that ultimate groundedness is not, "What do you believe?" but rather "What do you trust to the point that are you willing to stake your life on it?"
 
Jack, to your point about rationalizing away mystery, my reading of Dowd (perhaps because this is what I want him to say) is that once you have explained scientifically how something in the religious arena works or happens, that need not take the mystery out of it.  My example--child birth.  I have a layman's knowledge of how this happens scientifically, but it is no less mysterious and awe-filling each time it occurs.  I could say the same about death.  Hence in his talk about "public" and "private" revelation and about rational, factual language and about mythical, metaphorical language, the use of one does not cancel out the need for the other.  While I am not as ready as he appears to be to discount the role and impact of scripture and tradition as being obsolete, my Wesleyan heritage puts me right with him in affirming that revelation is sourced not only through scripture and tradition but also through reason and
 experience. One of the ideas he pushes at hard is that God's evolutional, revelatory, creative activity did not stop and the end of the sixth day in Genesis or the day the last writer of the New Testament, or some other wisdom literature, put down his pen.
 
Other points that caught my attention: that emergence happens through us in partnership with God; service to the Whole a big part of what we would call profound humanness; the dominant metaphor is changing from a mechanical to a nested, networked world, etc. etc. etc.
 
Thanks, Herman, for prompting this conversation (again) and to all who are participating in it.
 
Randy

From: "jlepps at pc.jaring.my" <jlepps at pc.jaring.my>
To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> 
Sent: Tuesday, July 9, 2013 8:19 PM
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] A review of Charles Taylor's "The Secular Society"



How could I stay out of this conversation???

There are at least three essays in my forthcoming book that address this issue. 2 are reviews of naive "theological" statements by Steven Hawking, and one is an essay on Faith. The latter is particularly pertinent here, since much of the controversy is about mis-understanding of language. Briefly, Faith seeks understanding, Faith seeks action, and Faith seeks expression. It's the expressions of faith that are sometimes confused with understandings of faith, and this leads to grossly flawed (and "unscientific") beliefs. It's as if one were to take Humpty Dumpty as a historical account rather than a mythological statement of profound truth!

Anyway the book is called "The Theology of Surprise: Exploring Life's Mysteries." It should be out around the first of August through Resurgence Publishing. Should be available through Amazon soon.

John

At 04:19 PM 7/9/2013, you wrote:

On Jul 9, 2013, at 3:49 PM, Herman Greene <hfgreenenc at gmail.com> wrote:
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>Now this is an incomplete response and there is much more to be said, including some positive things about Michael's approach. By the way, in some senses I am a religious naturalist, but along the lines of process theology. See 
>>
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>>Reenchantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion (Cornell Studies in the Philosophy of... by David Ray Griffin (Nov 16, 2000). In the process approach there's plenty of transcendence as well as immanence, and religious knowledge is not only what can be known through the five senses and logic. There are other ways of knowing.
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>I think of myself as an avid scientist. What I believe is secondary and derivative of what I experience, with gratitude to the RS-I and Frank, Amy, Lyn, et al. I find myself thinking these days, "I don't believe in God, I have a God Hypothesis."
>
>I observe in more ways than I can name a mystery, depth, and greatness in the world (and dozens of et ceteras that I'll lump under the category gracious and holy mystery) that come at me in the form of relationships and events, inside me and outside me. It's all sustaining and energizing, etc., etc.
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>My God hypothesis (for which read: narrative of what to expect) gives me eyes to see. My hypothesis is a narrative about trinitarian dynamics (limits, possibilities, freedom) and it has been uniformly and reliably predictive for over 40 years now. It's saved my life, one might say.
>
>Rather than "do you believe in God?" I prefer to ask, "What are our images of God? Are they predictive of life experience? Do they give us eyes to see?" 
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>I toy with images of myself as contemplative or mystic or inveterate listener or ceaseless questioner. All of them, really, are about constantly, unobtrusively observing, testing my hypothesis, refining my images of the way life is, and looking again, to see if I can see more of what is there and what is real.
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>I think I'd better read Dowd, Griffin, and Brooks, to see what all the energy is about.
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>I go a bit berserk at the endless, mindless contraversy about conflict between religious belief and scientific knowledge.
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>David
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>David Dunn
>740 S Alton Way 9B
>Denver, CO 80247
>720-314-5991
>dmdunn1 at gmail.com
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