From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Oct 31 2004 - 00:26:52 BST
dmb asked:
I'll ask you the same thing I ask everyone, can't you bring me some actual
quotes from these guys?
Scott Roberts quoted Peter Berger's The Heretical Imperative, p. 54.:
"For reasons discussed in some detail in the preceding chapter, the modern
situation is not conducive to the plausibility of religious authority. The
modern situation, with the closely related aspects of pluralism and
secularization, thus puts what may be called cognitive pressure on the
religious thinker. Insofar as the secular worldview of modernity dominates
his social context, the religious thinker is pressured to soft pedal if not
to abandon altogether the supernatural elements of his tradition."
dmb says:
Ah Ha! Cognitive pressure indeed! I'm so grateful for something tangible in
this debate that I'm reluctant to point out that this quote undermines your
case. Aren't you the one who says the conflict between science and religion
was resolved a hundred years ago? What do you think Berger is talking about?
The conflict between science and religion is exactly what causes this
"cognitive pressure", don't you see?
Scott added:
He goes on to identify three responses to this situation, what he calls the
deductive, reductive, and inductive options. The deductive is to "reassert
the authority of a religious tradition in the face of modern secularity".
This would cover the fundamentalists, which was a movement that started
early in the last century, and also the anti-Modernist reaction of the
Catholic church which lasted until about 1950. The reductive is to
"reinterpret the tradition in terms of modern secularity". This option
could be found in a lot of 19th century Protestant liberalism, or today in
the "historical Jesus" movement, that is, those who try to make out that
Jesus was a social reformer, or whatever. The inductive option, which
Berger prefers, is "to turn to experience as the ground of all religious
affirmation -- one's own experience, to whatever extent this is possible,
and the experience embodied in a particular range of traditions. This range
may be of varying breadth -- limited minimally to one's own tradition, or
expanded maximally to include the fullest available record of human
religious hiistory. In any case, induction means here that religious
traditions are understood as bodies of evidence concerning religious
experience and the insights deriving from experience. Implied in this
option is a deliberately empirical attitude, a weighing and assessing frame
of mind -- not necessarily cool and dispassionate, but unwilling to impose
closure on the quest for religious truth by invoking any authority whatever
-- not the authority of this or that traditional *Deus dixit*, but also not
the authority of modern thought or consciousness."
dmb says:
Berger seems like a thoughtful guy, but it seems pretty clear even from this
very limited exposure that he's desperately trying to save his faith above
all. And while his third option is clearly the least objectionable, it still
seems to cling too tightly to tradition and strikes a bit of an
anti-intellectual attitude. The idea that traditions should be counted as
evidence is a good one if its highly qualified. The reports of UFO
encounters are so widespread and so consistent that I can only conclude that
they are evidence of something quite real, but they're not evidence of any
actual UFOs. You know what I mean? And when we look at the world's
traditons, not as a believer, but simply as a human being who is a product
of this cultural inheritance, there is much truth. Unlike Berger, I think
Pirsig and all my intellecual heros would say that "the authority of modern
thought" MUST be brought to bear if we are to examine them as evidence of
anything. (If that authority means something like submitting to the
standards of evidence and experience, if that means its gotta make sense and
all that.) I was a fan of Joseph Campbell before Pirsig wrote, toward the
end of Lila, that his MASKS OF GOD was a good way to get a look at the shape
and meaning of this tradition. (Campbell is a perennial philosopher too.)
Mythologists and psychologists go together like peanut and jelly here. In
fact, Campbell edited and wrote the forward for THE PORTABLE JUNG and the
JUNG INSTITUTE now has Campbell's library. Neither of these guys rob
tradition of its power or meaning and yet subject it to all manner of
intellectual scrutiny. The only thing that doesn't survive is faith and
theism. I think Pirsig's the same way.
But thanks. Really. This is encouraging. You really seem to be addressing my
concerns and giving a better idea of what you're trying to say.
dmb
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