A Critique of Theological Thinking

We should distrust people who assume their own moral certitude a priori. We should fear people who lack the ability to question their own motivations. Religion is not the reason that certain people are inclined to view the world through a misplaced sense of moral or intellectual superiority.

 

I agree that the OP is written more in the style of a blog post, rather than offering a topic and opening a discussion.

I dispute the OPs use of the literal translation of the term "theology" as the study of the devine. Webster defines it as the study of religion, which would place it in the same category as the "soft" sciences of Sociology and Psychology. The same objections raised about Theology as a science also can be expressed about all social sciences.

The real objection appears to be with religious thought, which has never survived strict logical scrutiny. Believers believe, regardless of the incompatibility with observable data. It's the total denial of scientific fact by (generally Biblical) religious fundamentalists that has driven me away from religion.

 

When discussing Theology it helps to understand that it's a collection of disciplines spanning a wide range of different religions. The problem with Americans (and I am one) is whenever the innocuous word "Religion" is brought up amongst a group of Americans, it's automatically assumed that the religion must either be fundamentalist Christian or fundamentalist Islam. To Americans, there are no other religions. I would really enjoy a discussion that dares to venture beyond the extremes. Okay?

 

you want to play this game, you have to start with knowing what you're talking about when you use the word theology: within the christian tradition are you referring to augustinians? thomists? nomalists? the goofy lutheran thing that by-passes theology altogether and talks about grace enabling one to understand words written from a perspective that is infinite? the even more degenerate evangelical protestant idea that, somehow, divinely inspired words speak directly to one's life?

you oppose to this undifferentiated notion of theology some equally stupid notion of positivist science? what do you mean by science? what are the rules? how does it work? are there even different disciplines? what differentiates them?

i like this...i do not like that... it's like talking about which tv show you prefer

 

Amen to that.

There are atheists who are just that. They don't believe.

Then there are atheists who define themselves in opposition to believers and who go to great extents to try and prove why they are more 21st century wow than all those religious folks and their supernatural hocus-pocus. I cringe when I read this stuff because it is so earnest and absolute, ergo suspect. Much like when the 7th day adventist folks come to my door, I feel like I am about to be sold a bill of goods. By someone who should probably spend less time thinking about religion and more time thinking about, I dunno, how not to come across as a fruitcake.

Believing or not believing is not the point. It is keeping an open mind that frees us from the binds of dogma and allows us to see. I believe that most men and women working on the frontiers of modern science understand this. Especially so.

 

I have to say that the OP strikes me as one more of a long and common list of examples of conflating "religion" with "fundamentalism." The two are not the same at all. Most religions are complex and extensively ramifying associations of textual canons, interpretive traditions, and systems of philosophy and theology, often in combination with very diverse cultural or social customs, all of which, of course, produce varying results depending on the education, training, and intellectual sophistication of the individual member of the religion.

But in general, no major religion is monolithic.

I can certainly vouch for the fact that "Jewish" is a term that encompasses a vast array of differing interpretations of both sacred text and Jewish Law, movements both current and historical, and a multitude of differing theologies and philosophies, to say nothing of more variations in customs of practice than I could count. We jokingly say "Two Jews, three opinions," though we might just as well say "Two Jews, six opinions," and probably have room for more.

And while I am not a Christian, nor is Christianity my area of expertise, I certainly know enough to know that there are an enormous plethora of sectarian differences, movemental differences, schools of theological or philosophical thought, and so forth. And likewise, in Islam, I know there there are several sectarian differences, and many differences of movement or school of thought or interpretive tradition, to say nothing of a truly staggering array of varying customs and mores depending on culture and region as much as (if not more than) Islamic textual or interpretive teaching. And though I know even less about them, I believe the same to be true of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Baha'i, and so forth.

Most religions are not, in fact, dominated by fundamentalism, though some sects may be.

In Judaism, at least, the vast majority of Jews are not Haredim (ultra-Orthodox, our version of fundamentalism), nor are Jews textual literalists, by and large. The majority of Jews that I know would never consider religion and science to be mutually exclusive: they practice their religion, they believe in whatever Jewish theology they have chosen to believe in, and to them that has nothing to do with cosmological physics or evolutionary biology or environmental science or what have you.

I greatly dislike the typical atheist reductivism of "science is based on facts and evidence, but religion is based on fairy tales and superstitions." What I think is the case is that the two are apples and oranges. Religion isn't supposed to be science, nor is science supposed to be religion: they are two completely different models of interacting with the world, and they have completely different agenda and goals. It is certainly true that religion is based on faith and on spiritual experiences which are inherently subjective: religion is arational. But effective religion doesn't claim the mantle of science: it's usually the mark of fundamentalism when a religious sect or movement claims to be able to "prove" the objective truth of their faith, and fundamentalism is not good religion.

FWIW, as regards the definition of theology, my theology professor in rabbinical school (the noted Jewish theologian and philosopher Rabbi Elliot Dorff) defined "philosophy of religion" as (and I am paraphrasing) the systems of philosophy that examine the thought and function of religions from outside the perspective of any single faith tradition. Theology, he then specified, is the philosophy of religion within the perspective of a single faith tradition.

 

Hell no!
There's no such things as crystal healing and homeopathy among the sciences, on the contrary science disproves much of it.

BTW the thread starting is misleading since theology either isn't a science, is a study with other means and purposes than scientifical ones... I think no-one sane ever defined theology as a science, it will be belittling both for them as for science...

oranges and apples...

And Baraka you cite buddism that is i deity-less reiligion as close to science: sure it is, it is perflectly scientifical to assure that no deity interfere with you toughs and means in life, but everything is in the line of thinking about life, and that knowledge sets you free.
Buddism is closer to science than to deity religions, expecially revalated ones...

 

Theology has been called the "Queen of Sciences" and I'm happy that it is no longer considered by many in this way. At the time, it provided a context for scientific study that, in my opinion, limited and misdirected that study. Better, by far, to go where the data takes you than to be directed by dominant religious belief-sets.

Theology is generally studied from the perspective of a particular faith tradition (as Levite pointed out). As such, much of what it can explore starts with the precept "if X" (where X is a belief of the given faith tradition - for example: "If the Bible is the inerrant word of God"). To me, this has an element of self-indulgence about it. That may be because I don't subscibe to the belief-sets that are generally involved in these philosophical explorations.

As has been said before, Theology can be seen as "searching in a black cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there".

To me, Theology is, at best, a branch of philosophy - but one that starts with a loaded question. If we, as a species, forgot all the theology that ever existed, would it make a material difference? I doubt it. However, if the same happened to mathematics (or literature) for example, I think we would see a difference.

Given that there are limited resources for education, should Theology receive the same support as other areas? Given what I have said above, I might be expected to argue that is shouldn't - but I don't. I think it can still provide a context in which people can be taught to think, for example. I also think that there is something interesting in the fact that a belief in a power or deity has been close to universal in human development, and that there is something worth exploring in that. It could, of course be explored under the banner of, for example, Anthropology - but why not Theology?

While we may not lose very much if Theology was no longer studied, I don't think we would stand to gain much (if anything) either.

If nothing else, it sparks debate and helps us to think about some of the big questions.

 

Can science and religion co-exist? Well, yes, but they are not complimentary. Many have said that they are two different ways of looking at life, that they deal with different subjects and, when kept separately, there is no conflict. This thinking overlooks the fact that most religions (at least the 4 major ones) do not remain separate from science because they make claims that are contrary to science: virgin birth, resurrection, life after death, the effectiveness of prayer. Science and religion may co-exist--just not at the same time and place--similar to matter and anti-matter. One cancels out the other.

 

What do you consider to be the "4 major" ones?

Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and a combination of Chinese Traditional (Taoism and Confucianism) and Buddhism? I'm not clear that the claims are all as you describe.

 

I would agree with you that these claims of religion contradict science if science had ever actually made some proclamation to have researched them and found them false, which it has not. Science can only say that there is no evidence to date, to confirm or deny. The absence of evidence is not evidence. Religious claims made which are contrary to science are only contrary to what science has uncovered to date and it must be pointed out that current scientific methods are inadequate to test the validity or non-validity of these claims.

The virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus? Rather than being contrary to science, I would think that most in the scientific community look upon these claims as many of the rest of us do - as unsophisticated interpretations of events unworthy of serious scientific discussion.

Life after death and the effectiveness of prayer? These claims do not contradict science as science has no tools by which to research the claims. Either may in fact, hold some truth. I don't believe science denies the possibility.

 

One more thought, and then I'm finished. I may not know whether or not there is a supernatural supreme being. What I do know is that man has been creating his deities for as far back as we have geological and historical records of man's existence. Indications have been found that homo sapiens built alters and offered sacrifices of some sort. The Greeks, for hundreds/thousands of years BCE, called on Zeus, Thor, Neptune, Aphrodite, Ares, etc. who resided on top of Mt. Olympus. The Egyptians invented Re, Amun, Ptah, Aten, Osiris, etc. for whom they built temples and places of worship. The Aztec, Mayans and Incas all had their version of deities and celestial beings which had power over their lives.
None of the above seem to be in vogue today, so what makes us think that Judaism, Islam, Hinduism or Christianity are any more viable? The difficulty in discussing the efficacy of religion is that most of them begin with a premise that is myth or fantasy, i.e. the existence of a supernatural being. When the starting point is myth, it is not surprising that any argument which follows will consist of more myth/fantasy--like the liar who finds it necessary to tell more lies in order to avoid revealing the first one.

 

The problem with denouncing religion as proceeding from a false premise-- i.e., there is no God-- is that the falsity of the premise is itself an unproven (and likely unprovable) hypothesis. There is no more conclusive proof that there is no God than that there is a God.

Faith is the choice to believe something is absolutely true in the absence of conclusive objective evidence to support the idea. That describes the choice to believe with certainty in the existence of a supreme being, and it also describes the choice to believe with certainty in the nonexistence of a supreme being.

I will certainly admit that fundamentalist, literalist theologies, which uncritically propound a simplistic and rigidly anthropomorphic deity (usually in combination with extremely literalist and shallow readings of sacred text) are fairly easy to find rationalist objections to, since there are so many elements that they insist are objective, historic, and rationally quantifiable-- which as I mentioned before, makes them ineffective religion.

But those theologies are neither the sum total of religious thought, or even the statistical majority of schools of religious thought. And many of the more subtle, nuanced, and intellectually complex theologies are far more difficult to dismiss out of hand, given that they are far less literalistic, and far less simplistic and rigid in their readings of text and philosophical understandings of God, people, and history.

And the God propounded in most of those theologies is inherently unprovable by scientific means. Revelation is a supremely subjective experience: and just as it cannot be objectified to "prove" God to non-believers, it cannot be objectified to "disprove" God to believers.

In the end, the honest choices are critical and conscious faith as a choice, or critical agnosticism-- even extremely dubious and cynical agnosticism. But true atheism is not any more rational than absolute faith.

 

Yes, I automatically thought about observer/subject expectancy (positive and negative) and things like placebo/nocebo effects.

I was also thinking about the physical nature of the universe and our limited knowledge of things like dark matter and the relationship between matter and anti-matter. I like to join it with the idea (mostly Buddhist) that suggests our thoughts and words, positive or negative, influence a greater universal consciousness comprised of positive and negative energy in a constant state of balance maintenance.

 

That would probably be a surprise to Odin. Maybe that explains why he doesn't pay rent to Valhalla any more.
--- merged: Oct 14, 2012 at 2:25 PM ---

So, are those what you refer to as the "4 major" ones? I ask because you never answered my question. Never mind.

They aren't the 4 largest anyway (Judaism doesn't belong in that list). "No religion" would make it. If that is excluded, the Chinese traditional religions would be included (which don't have a deity - which is maybe why you exclude them).

Arguments made from a scientific basis require adherence to data.

 

"If I could only see the forest, but all these trees are in the way". My point was religion has been used to rationalize a lot of abhorrent behavior for millenia, it's not likely to stop anytime soon.


It's been covered here already, but theology can be compared to other disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, and even some aspects of psychology. After all, what is science? It's the building of a body of knowledge that is used to explain things. Theology does this with religion and spirituality.