In my first post, Epistemology 101: Science, Faith and Authority Part I, I set out some basics about epistemology, I now want to turn to one particular way we know things: testimony. Nicholas Wolterstorff defines paradigmatic cases of testimony as: believing X on the say so of someone else Y. There is a highly influential tradition of epistemology which is sceptical or critical of beliefs based on testimony.

Testimony
In his Essay on Human Understanding John Locke argued that one had a duty to not believe any proposition merely on the authority of another person. One should trust the testimony of another only if one has:

(a) good reasons for thinking that the testifier is reliable; or,
(b) good reasons for believing the truth of the proposition itself.

Taking another persons word for something in the absence of independent evidence is irrational. Locke hinted that such gullibility was socially dangerous, tied up with intolerance, authoritarianism and oppression.

Something like this lurks in contemporary culture and is often encapsulated in quotes such as “think for yourself.” The problem is that a little reflection shows that this view of testimony is mistaken.

CAJ Coady summarises the problem, if one is going to have evidence for the reliability of a testifier then this evidence will either include some other testimony or it will be based upon sources apart from testimony. The first option is obviously a non-starter, any evidence based on testimony will have to, by Locke’s position, be shown to be reliable by further testimony and so on, ad infinitum, until we reach some non-testimonial source. However, if we embrace the second option and we exclude what we know by way of testimony from our evidence base then we will have so little to go on that such grounds will be almost impossible to come by.

To demonstrate this consider an example from Greg Dawes in a paper he wrote on faith,

Very many of our beliefs are held on the basis of testimony. (In this context I shall sometimes refer to these as beliefs held on the basis of authority.) Does e=mc2 represent the rate at which matter can be transformed into energy? I believe so, although I would not have the faintest idea how to demonstrate its truth I have it on good authority that it is true…Of course, there is a sense in which I do believe this on the basis of evidence. I have reasons to believe in the trustworthiness of the sources from which I gained the information.[1]

Like Locke, Dawes suggests that a non-physicist such as himself can rationally believe e=mc2 because he has reasons to believe that his sources are trustworthy. I believe this last comment is incorrect. Consider, for example, what reasons he could offer for believing that the source of his information was reliable? Presumably, it would be because the author of the book where he read it or the person who told him the information was a physicist. Nevertheless, how does Dawes know this? He could have read the person’s qualifications off a faculty list, off the dust-jacket of the book or have been told them by the person in person but in each case he is relying on testimony and so, in the absence of further reasons, he cannot believe these sources. Suppose, however, Dawes was to investigate thoroughly and locate the address of the university where the degree in physics was claimed to be awarded in order to travel there and personally check the original records. Yet again, he will be relying on testimony in the form of an address list and records. He also would have to have trusted the testimony of maps and road signs in getting to the institution in question.

Consider then what Dawes would have left to go on if he did not use testimony. He could not rely on any information that he himself did not observe first-hand. This would exclude any information about events prior to his own lifetime, any events in his own lifetime that he did not remember witnessing first-hand and any event that happened in a place other than where he was at the time. Nothing read in journals, books, heard in lectures, taught to him by his parents or teachers could be used. Nothing heard on the news, read on the computer, told over the phone or reported on in the media could be included. Almost everything he had learnt through his entire education would be excluded because nearly all of it is based on testimony. It seems, then, that if Dawes were really to comply with the epistemic standards that he laid down, he could not rationally believe in e=mc2. It appears he is mistaken in thinking that one needs to have reasons for thinking a given authority is reliable in order to be warranted in believing in testimony.

I think this example shows that this is not isolated. What we know, by way of being told by others, accounts for a huge and pervasive amount of what we believe. Everything I know about other places, other times, everything learned at school, university, from my parents, friends, books, newspapers, television, etc is based on testimony. If I were to try to verify any of these beliefs without first relying on some other piece of testimony, I would be unable to. The kind of critical attitude where one deplores believing things on faith or on the say so of others is un-viable. As social beings with a limited perspective in time and space, and with limited areas of speciality, we need to trust the testimony of others for most of what we know.

Testimony Beliefs as Basic Beliefs
For this reason the idea that one cannot accept something on the say so of testimony until it is verified is problematic. Instead I am inclined to accept a different picture of the role that testimony and faith in authorities should play in our knowledge. The picture that testimony beliefs are properly basic beliefs.

To see what I mean by this consider the following point by Roy Clouser,

If everything needs to be proven then the premises of every proof would need to be proven. But if you need a proof for every proof, you need a proof for your proof, and a proof for your proof of a proof and so on-forever. Thus it makes no sense to demand that everything be proven because an infinite regress of proofs is impossible.[2]

Clouser notes that the appeal to evidence, in the form of premises from which one infers a conclusion, have to terminate somewhere if we are to avoid being sceptical about everything.

The terminus is a set of ultimate premises called basic beliefs, which are those beliefs that form the foundation of our knowledge. We are justified in believing them independently of any argument or proof for them.

If this seems counter-intuitive consider that there are plenty of things we believe that are not based on arguments. Our belief in the existence of the past or our belief that it is wrong to rape women or our belief that other people exist or that basic axioms of logic are true are not based on inferences to the best explanation so that they are rationally believed because they explain some phenomena better than all alternatives. It is rather that these beliefs are part of the background data that we use to assess proposed explanations against.

Usually basic beliefs are grounded in some form of experience. We recognise these as true because we experience or see them to be true. For example, I see that the basic axioms of logic are self-evident, I remember the existence of a past event, I intuitively see that rape is wrong and think anyone who does not see this is simply morally blind. I see the chair in front of me, I hear the car outside and so on. These beliefs function as fundamental premises that we argue to other theories from.

It is important to note that while we are justified in believing basic beliefs in the absence of evidence for them, their justified status can be defeated if we gain good reasons for rejecting these beliefs. For example, on a Tuesday evening I have a vivid experience of my brother entering my room, I form the basic belief that “my brother is in my room.” The next morning I hear that my brother was out all evening. I also discover that the medication I took the night before has hallucinatory side effects. The basic belief, grounded in my perceptual experience of observing my brother entering the room on Tuesday night is defeated. There are two ways basic beliefs can be defeated, undercutting defeaters involve a reason a person acquires which, when added to their stock of beliefs, gives them reasons for thinking that the source of the basic belief is unreliable – my discovery of the hallucinatory side effects is an example of this. Rebutting defeaters, on the other hand, are reasons one acquires for thinking the belief itself is false. My discovery that my brother was not home is a rebutting defeater, if he was not home then he was not in my room.

The picture I want to suggest is that in many circumstances beliefs held on the basis of testimony function as basic beliefs. When a person, whom we take to be a competent authority, affirms a proposition P then in the absence of defeaters we are rational in accepting P. We do not need to prove that what the person says is true before we can accept it and nor do we have to prove that they are a reliable authority before we have to accept it. We do, however, have to take seriously any purported defeaters we are confronted with. We have to take seriously evidence we have that the authorities in question are not actually a reliable guide in the area in which they are speaking and we have to take seriously arguments given against what we accept.

Translating this into a current context, contrary to what is often thought, most of our knowledge of scientific facts is, in fact, on the basis of testimony. As a child I ask questions, why does this happen? what caused this? and so on, my parents tell me answers and I believe them. I go to school and I am taught science and later physics and chemistry, I go to university and attend lectures, I read text books, I might do some experimental work myself but it is in the context of what I have already learned from testimonial sources. I read about studies scientists have done in journals and I believe what is written in these journals. Despite the bravado of self-professed free thinkers, our  acquisition of scientific knowledge is pervasively shot through with faith – faith in authorities, faith that others are being honest to us and are trustworthy and so on. It can be no other way. Hence, to believe some fact about the world merely because another has told you it is true is not irrational but in fact a sensible thing to do.

Consider an example, I am in my car listening to the radio and Keisha Castle-Hughes is on air talking about climate change. The media are praising her for her brave efforts to educate the public. How should I respond? In this instance I am inclined to think that I face some defeaters. I know Castle-Hughes is an actor and has no real expertise in the area in which she is talking. I also know that actors are good at being very convincing at playing a role, which is not real. I know Castle-Hughes is quite young and is unlikely to have had a very substantial science education, much less time to specialise in climatology. I know the media are notoriously unreliable, journalists tend to be very political, their deadline give them limited time to research and they are not experts in science at all. In this instance, I think that I have real reasons to be sceptical of what Castle-Hughes is saying. Even if what she is saying, in fact, is true, I should not believe it just because she says so.

Here is another example. I read a book by Richard Dawkins. He claims that the evidence quite conclusively suggests there is no God. Now in some places Dawkins offers arguments and I can assess these using my ability to reason deductively but in other places he simply tells his readers things. He puts forward various arguments for God’s existence, which he says these are representative of the case for theism, he attributes these to Thomas Aquinas, talks of first-cause arguments and the like. This is a bona fide, scientist with a professorship at Oxford. His specialty is zoology.

However, accurately representing Aquinas’ arguments for God requires knowledge not in zoology but in medieval philosophy. A knowledge of what arguments have been put forward for theism, which are the most representative, which are the best, requires knowledge of a discipline called philosophy of religion. Dawkins’ position as a zoologist means his knowledge is in a very different field. Hence, his being a scientist gives me no reason to accept his work on Aquinas.

This underscores an important point. If a person has some bone fide authority in a field it means he has authority in that field, it does not mean he or she has any authority in another field. Scientists qua scientists are experts in science, not morality, public policy, law, ethics, theology and what have you. Similarly, pastors are trained in biblical exegesis and theology, their knowledge, therefore, is in those fields and not science. One of the problems with the rise of the Internet is that people can get information on any subject any where from any source. In this context it is important to examine carefully whether we have good reasons for questioning whether the source is authoritative.

It is not a bad idea to make our starting place be that we will accept what we are told by authorities but we should not always end there.

In my final post in this series, Part III, I will look at what we should do when authorities clash.

[1] Greg Dawes, “Faith and Reason”, a paper presented to the University of Otago Theology and Religious Studies Faculty. This is contained in Dawes, Philosophy of Religion (so far unpublished) 34.
[2] Roy Clouser  Knowing With the Heart (IVP: Downers Grove, 1999) 69.

RELATED POSTS:
Epistemology 101: Science, Faith and Authority Part I
Epistemology 101: Science, Faith and Authority Part III

Ken Pulliam has taken issue with this defence so here I will respond to some of his criticisms. (I plan to address some of the other objections in future posts). Before doing so it is important to address some rhetorical tricks his article contains. To begin with Pulliam entitles his response “Grasping at Straws Part Eleven–Evangelicals Defend Genocide” and cites Wolterstorff and myself as examples. But neither Wolterstorff or I defended genocide, we argued that God did not command genocide. Moreover, referring to my argument, Pulliam states that I cited “external evidence of how other ANE nations reported their exploits of war [by citing] evangelical Kenneth Kitchen.” Now it is true that Kitchen is an evangelical and that I cite him, however, Kitchen is also a leading Egyptologist and I don’t just cite him I cite numerous examples of Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) reports of war where language similar to that used by Joshua and Deuteronomy are used hyperbolically. I also noted evidence that Joshua is written according to the literary conventions of such reports.

Instead of addressing this evidence directly, Pulliam gives a series of arguments for the claim that the text is not hyperbolic but literal. One objection Pulliam raises is that this interpretation “fails to solve the other moral problems in the Hebrew Scriptures.” He asks, “are we to explain away all of the problems in the Old Testament by appealing to hyperbole?” The answer of course is no; it is hard to see why this is an objection. Why does an interpretation of one passage have to answer every question about every other passage in order for it to be plausible? Interpreting the first line of Pulliam’s post literally does not solve every problem I see in it should I, therefore, not take it literally?

A second, objection Pulliam makes is that “it fails to take into account how these hyperbolic passages would be misused in the future by those who thought they were following divinely commanded principles.” Presumably Pulliam means that God, by allowing his word to be mediated through the literary conventions of ANE historiography, would forsee that future generations will misinterpret it. This, of course, is correct. Again, it is unclear why this means that the text should be taken literally. After all, it seems any language which God mediates his word through, whether literal or figurative, will have this implication. A message mediated through the more literalistic conventions of 21st century English, History and Moral Philosophy would be misunderstood by numerous people as well (his seems to be more a problem with verbal revelation per se rather than any particular interpretation of it).

Pulliam’s other arguments are more on point. He argues that a hyperbolic interpretation “fails to appreciate that Judges 2:1-5 says that the Israelites did not obey the LORD in totally destroying the Canaanites, and that as a result, they will have problems for generations to come.” Pulliam poses a rhetorical question, “if the genocidal commands were never intended to be taken literally, why are the people scolded by Yahweh and told that their future problems will come as a result of their disobedience?” In fact, in articles which Pulliam refers to both Wolterstorff and I cite this passage and point out that, in fact, it says no such thing; it states,

‘I will never break my covenant with you,² and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this?³ Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them out before you; they will be thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you.⁴

Here Israel is criticised for disobeying an order to not make a covenant with the Canaanites and to destroy their altars. There is nothing at all present in these passages about extermination and genocide. Moreover, both Wolterstorff and myself pointed this out.

Pulliam further objects that,

One must ask if Wolterstorff’s opinion that Joshua uses “highly figurative” language is based on literary considerations or is it driven more by his need to solve the moral problems involved? He does not provide any direct parallels between Joshua and other literature which is clearly recognized as hagiographic and figurative.

This again is simply a distortion of the situation. In my original post I gave a large number of direct parallels between Joshua and other literature which is both figurative and hagiographic (in Wolterstorff’s sense of the term). Given that I did this and that Pulliam has clearly read the post (he did link to it) one wonders why he claims no such parallels have been offered. Moreover, Wolterstorff, in the article he cites from, does provide several literary considerations for his thesis. It seems evident that several of Pulliam’s arguments involve simply ignoring what Wolterstorff and I have written and distorting the evidence.

Equally puzzling is Pulliam’s argument, “If Joshua is hagiography, why shouldn’t one believe that the Gospels are as well? Why should one take their stories as literal history?” This is puzzling because my post addressed this. There is compelling textual evidence both from within the text itself and also via comparisons between Joshua and other ANE texts to suggest that it is hyperbolic. These parallels and textual considerations are not present with the gospels. Similarly, in his book Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks Wolterstorff discusses the genre of the gospels and cites comparisons with ancient Greek biographies to defend the claim that the gospels are ancient Greek biography. Again Pulliam’s response appears to be to ignore what those he criticises actually wrote.

It is worth noting that this kind of argument relies on a peculiar assumption, that if one grants that one part of a text is non-literal then one cannot, non-arbitrarily, take any other part of the text as literal. Pulliam’s own writing falsifies this claim. He concludes that “Wolterstorff is more sophisticated than some of the other harmonization attempts we have seen, it is in reality just another case of grasping at straws.” Surely, his phrase “grasping at straws” is a non-literal figure of speech (I am assuming he did not mean to refer to real straws) does it follow then that we should not take anything else he says in his post literally?

One good way to end a conversation – or start an argument – is to tell a group of well educated professionals that you hold a political position (preferably a controversial one such as being against abortion or pornography) because it is required by your understanding of God’s will. In the unlikely event that anyone hangs around to talk with you about it, chances are that you will be challenged on the ground that you are intent on imposing your religious beliefs on other people. And in contemporary political and legal culture, nothing is worse.

Carter puts his finger on an important perspective which is pervasive in contemporary liberal societies. This is the view that citizens of liberal democracies may justly support the implementation of a law only if they reasonably believe themselves to have a plausible secular justification for that law. Further, they must be willing to appeal to secular justifications alone in political discussion. The upshot of this perspective is that it is perceived to be unjust to support or advocate for laws for theological or religious reasons.

I will refer to this position as secularism, the commitment to the position that the public square should be secular. The secularisation of political culture is, of course, an implication of accepting this position.  Richard Rorty described it as,

The happy, Jeffersonian compromise that the Enlightenment reached with the religious. This compromise consists in privatizing religion — keeping it out of … “the public square,” making it seem bad taste to bring religion into discussions of public policy.

My experience as a New Zealand citizen is that secularism is widely held and taken for granted in our culture by media, politicians and popular culture. I also think, perhaps predictably, that secularism of this sort is questionable.

Let me begin by pointing out that several writers have observed that prima facie there is something unfair or discriminatory about secularism. Contemporary critics of secularism, Christopher Eberle and Terence Cuneo, note that it entails “There is an important asymmetry between religious and secular reasons in the following respect: some secular reasons can themselves justify state coercion but no religious reason can.”

Another critic, Philip Quinn, observes that secularists impose “burdens on religious people” that they nowhere suggest “imposing on nonreligious people.” Secularists do “not propose that nonreligious people must be sufficiently motivated by adequate religious reason for their advocacy or support of restrictive laws or policies. The lack of symmetry is striking.”

This raises an obvious question, why the asymmetry? On the face of it secularism appears to privilege secular ideologies and doctrines in public debate whilst relegating religious or theological perspectives to the private sphere.  What is the basis for this? Two reasons are typically offered and neither is terribly compelling.

The first is that it is dangerous to allow theological or religious concerns into public debate. Defenders of secularism raise the specter of the wars of religion that tore Europe apart during the 17^th century or they mention episodes such as the Inquisition and Crusades, which are said to be consequences of allowing religious reasons to influence public and political life. It is argued that the only way to keep social peace and prevent the kind of violence that Europe witnessed is to ensure religious reasons do not influence public life and that all political discussions take place on secular terms.

This argument assumes that appeal to religious reasons is the cause of religious wars and appeals to secular reasons protect us against such wars. Writing in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Eberle and Cuneo note that the religious wars of the 17^th century were caused not by the appeal to religious reasons per se but rather by the violation of religious freedom. Moreover, they note that even in the 17^th century, religious persecution was typically justified on secular grounds. They go on to observe that religious freedom is not necessarily safeguarded by secularising public debate. They note that many “secularists have a long history of hostility to the right to religious freedom and, presumably, that hostility isn’t at all grounded in religious considerations” In addition, they note correctly that some of the most important defences of religious persecution and defences of religious tolerance, such as those proposed by John Locke and Pierre Bayle, appealed to explicitly theological grounds.

Yale philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff makes a similar point, he notes that much of “the slaughter, torture, and generalised brutality of our century has mainly been conducted in the name of one or another secular cause–nationalism of many sorts, communism, fascism, patriotisms of various kinds, economic hegemony.” He also stated that “many of the social movements in the modern world that have moved societies in the direction of liberal democracy have been deeply and explicitly religious in their orientation.” Wolterstorff cites examples such as the abolitionist, civil rights and various other resistance movements as examples.

The assumption that secular reasoning is always tolerant and religious reasoning is always intolerant does not survive scrutiny. Particular types of religious reasons in particular political contexts can lead to wars and abuse, whereas appealing to other types of religious reasons in other contexts can be beneficent. The same is equally true of secular reasons. Certain types of secular reasons can be dangerous in particular contexts and other types of secular reasons are not. To single religious reasons out as being ‘too dangerous to be aired in public’ and insisting on a default to secular reasons seems ad hoc and unjustified.

The fear of religious wars is not the only argument typically offered for the secular public square. The main reason offered for secularism is that religious reasons are not accessible to all people. Auckland Law Professor Paul Rishworth observes, “some have contended that the nature of religious belief is such that, while it may be integral to individual autonomy and development, it has no proper role in public policy debates and that these ought to be conducted exclusively in secular terms that are equally accessible to all.” [Emphasis added]

Something like this is also evident in defences of secularism. Leading secular Philosopher Michael Tooley states, “For it is surely true that it is inappropriate, at least in a pluralistic society, to appeal to specific theological beliefs of a non moral sort… in support of legislation that will be binding upon everyone.” Robert Audi, one of the leading defenders of secularism, states “as advocates for laws and public policies, then, and especially for those that are coercive, virtuous citizens will seek grounds of a kind that any rational adult citizen can endorse as sufficient for the purpose.” [Emphasis added]  In essence, because not everyone in society accepts the existence of God or some theological perspective on life then it is unjust to base laws governing their conduct on theological or religious grounds.

This argument is deeply flawed. If taken consistently it would require not just the exclusion of religious reasons but the exclusion of any reasons that were controversial and not accepted by all people. The problem is that many secular justifications and ideologies are also controversial in the same way. Quinn makes the point,

If the fact that religious reasons cannot be shared by all in a religiously pluralistic society suffices to warrant any exclusion of religious reasons for advocating or supporting restrictive laws or policies, then much else ought in fairness also to be excluded on the same grounds.

He goes on to note,

Indeed, it would seem that the appeal to any comprehensive ethical theory, including all known secular ethical theories, should be disallowed on the grounds that every such theory can be reasonably rejected by some citizens of a pluralistic democracy. And if justification of restrictive laws or policies can be conducted only in terms of moral considerations no citizen of a pluralistic democracy can reasonably reject, then in a pluralistic democracy such as ours very few restrictive laws or policies can be morally justified, a conclusion that would, I suspect, be welcomed only by anarchists. [Emphasis added]

I agree with Quinn. There is special pleading going on whereby theological beliefs are rejected on certain grounds, while secular ones are not, even though the same grounds and reasons, consistently applied, should lead to the rejection of secular beliefs.

On examining secularism and the main arguments for it, it certainly is not evident that a just or fair society will have a secularised public square. To insist this is the case prima facie seems to favour secular views of the world for no adequate reason. Contrary to what some maintain, secular reasons, like religious reasons, can be used to justify atrocities and human rights abuses. Further, like religious reasons, secular reasons are frequently controversial and not shared by all intelligent people. Of course, secularists might consider religious views of the world to be false but then, of course, religious people consider secular views of the world to be false and given the diversity of secular moral theories on offer they cannot all be true (some are at odds with each other) so why single out religious views? The question remains as to why morality requires that public discussions privilege secular perspectives by requiring that all such discussions are engaged in on secular terms.  I suspect we will be waiting a long time for an answer.

[In this article I acknowledge being influenced by my wife Madeleine Flannagan’s supervised research paper “Religious Restraint and Public Policy” which she wrote under the supervision of Professor Rishworth, the Dean of the University of Auckland’s School of Law.]

I write a monthly column for Investigate Magazine entitled Contra Mundum. This blog post was published in the June 10 issue and is reproduced here with permission. Contra Mundum is Latin for ‘against the world;’ the phrase is usually attributed to Athanasius who was exiled for defending Christian orthodoxy.

Letters to the editor should be sent to: editorial@investigatemagazine.DELETE.com

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Now Dawkins is a Zoologist and I, not being a Zoologist, would not presume to assess his work on Zoology. What is interesting, however, is that much of Dawkins’ most famous work is not on Zoology; it is on Theology and specifically Philosophy of Religion. That field of Philosophy which critically analyses religious questions, such as, the veracity of arguments for and against God’s existence. Having some background in these fields I find it a little surprising that an Auckland University publication would contend that his work is open minded because it is evidently not.

In The God Delusion Dawkins’ main argument against the existence of God alludes to Fred Hoyle’s famous claim that the probability of something as complex as life evolving by blind chance was less likely than a fully-functional Boeing 747 being created by a hurricane blowing parts around in a junk yard. Dawkins writes, “However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747.” Dawkins has made the same line of argument elsewhere “God, or any intelligent, decision-making calculating agent, is complex, which is another way of saying improbable.” In The Blind Watchmaker he argues,

Once we are allowed simply to postulate organized complexity, if only the organized complexity of the DNA/protein replicating machine, it is relatively easy to invoke it as a generator of yet more organized complexity”. But of course any God capable of intelligently designing something as complex as the DNA/protein machine must have been at least as complex and organized as that machine itself.

This argument contains three premises. First, that theism (belief in God) is justified by “postulating” God to explain the existence of organised complexity. Second that the God appealed to by theists is complex. Third, that the existence of complex beings are highly improbable. These lead to the conclusion that “God is the Ultimate Boeing 747” and hence “almost certainly does not exist”. The problem with this argument is that all three premises rest on caricatures and misunderstandings of contemporary theology and ignorance of contemporary philosophy of religion. I will explain.

Dawkins contends that God is postulated to explain organised complexity. There are two problems with this contention. First, Dawkins assumes that God is rationally believed only if his existence is inferred by some kind of argument for the best explanation of a given phenomenon. However, not all beliefs are justified on the basis of some kind of argument of this sort. Our belief in the existence of the past, our belief that it is wrong to rape, our belief that other people exist or that basic axioms of logic are true are not based on inferences to the best explanation. It is not that they are rationally believed because they explain some phenomena better than all alternatives, it is rather that these beliefs are part of the background data that we use to assess proposed explanations against. These things are true because we immediately experience them as true. I have the experience of remembering the existence of a past event. I intuitively perceive that rape is wrong. I experience the basic axioms of logic as self-evident and so on. Such beliefs are called properly-basic beliefs.

Since the late 1970’s an extremely important movement within Philosophy of Religion, known as the reformed epistemology movement, has offered detailed and rigorous defences of the contention that, for theists, belief in God can be properly-basic. This position has been defended by leading philosophers of religion such Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Peter Van Inwagen and others. Now, of course, it is possible that this movement is mistaken but Dawkins surely owes us an argument to this end as opposed to his simply assuming it and ignoring the counter evidence.

Second, among those theists who do defend God’s existence on the basis of some argument for the best explanation, very few do so on the basis that God explains “organized complexity”. Richard Swinburne, the leading proponent of such arguments, argues that God explains the existence of laws of nature, religious experience, the origin of the universe and the continued existence of the universe. Swinburne does not postulate God to explain “organised complexity”. Similarly, William Lane Craig, a leading defender of theism, suggests that God explains the origin of the universe, the existence of morality and the fine tuning of the laws of nature. Again, Craig makes no appeal to “organized complexity”. In 2009 The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology was published which contains the most up to date versions of the 11 most definitive arguments used to defend the existence of God in the literature today. Not one of them involves an appeal to “organised complexity”. While the cogency of arguments for the existence of God that do not involve “organized complexity” remains open to substantive debate, it is undisputed that these arguments exist. Dawkins’ picture of God as a postulate to explain organised complexity is a crude caricature of theistic scholarship.

To be fair Dawkins attempts to address some of these other arguments elsewhere in the book. However, here again much of his writing consists of caricature. He attacks five arguments proposed 800 years ago by Thomas Aquinas as being representative of the current case for theism and completely ignores the vastly more sophisticated and vigorous versions being defended in the literature today. Ironically, Dawkins quite severely misunderstands Aquinas’ arguments and attributes to him a position no Aquinas scholar would accept as accurate. However, even if his account were accurate, critiquing theism by attacking the arguments of one 12th century theologian is a bit like me attacking evolution on the basis of the evidence for it gathered in the 12th century and ignoring any of the scientific developments of the last 800 years. Such ineptitude would not be tolerated in the scientific world and should not be seen as de rigueur just because the topic is religion.

Dawkins’ second contention fares little better. Dawkins states that “A God capable of continuously monitoring and controlling the individual status of every particle in the universe cannot be simple” this seems to be because,

The corners of God’s giant consciousness are simultaneously preoccupied with the doings and emotions and prayers of every single human being—and whatever intelligent aliens there might be on other planets in this and 100 billion other galaxies.

There are several problems here. First, as Craig has noted, this confuses whether what God thinks about is complex with whether God himself is complex. Second, as Plantinga has noted, in The Blind Watchmaker Dawkins states that something is complex if it has parts that are “arranged in a way that is unlikely to have arisen by chance alone.” However, the concept of God employed by most theists is of an immaterial being that does not have material parts so by Dawkins’ own definition God is not complex (unless one assumes that God is a material being but theists almost unanimously maintain that God is an immaterial being).

This misrepresentation is made all the more pertinent by the fact that for centuries theists have been offering rigorous and sophisticated arguments that God is not in fact complex but is simple. While these arguments may not be successful, Dawkins still needs to actually provide reasons for rejecting them. To simply assert that God is to be conceived in a way that no one conceives Him and to ignore the numerous arguments to the contrary seem more like a child who asserts his position and then puts his hands over his ears and repeats “I am not listening” than it does a serious critical evaluation of another’s position.

Dawkins’ final contention, that the existence of complex beings is improbable, is similarly confused. Suppose one grants that God is “the Ultimate Boeing 747” and that God’s existence is as statically improbable as the complexity it is invoked to explain. Little in fact follows from this. This is because what is improbable in the Boeing 747 analogy is that the plane came into existence by chance. If God is “the Ultimate Boeing 747” then the conclusion to be drawn is only that it is improbable that God came into existence by chance. This, however, provides us with no reason for thinking that God does not exist. No theist holds that God came into existence by chance, theists hold that God is eternal. Here, again, Dawkins attacks a concept of God nobody holds to and hence is caught jousting with a straw-man.

On examining Dawkins’ central argument what one discovers is not an open-minded, informed, careful examination of the contemporary debate over the existence of God. Nor does one find a carefully researched assessment of theism. Instead one finds Dawkins simply ignoring what theists mean by God. He ignores how they conceptualise God and ignores the arguments and discussions they have actually made. The theism Dawkins dismisses apparently assumes that God is a material being with parts, that He came into existence by chance and is postulated merely to explain organized complexity. The actual arguments proposed in defence of theism that have been put forward in the literature are not addressed at all.

Some Auckland University academics might consider such tactics to count as open-minded but I do not. In my view an open-minded honest assessment of religion requires accurately representing what theologians say and teach. It means endeavouring to read and understand their position and offer informed and critical responses to these positions. Ignorance and caricature is not open-minded scholarship.

I write a monthly column for Investigate Magazine entitled Contra Mundum. This blog post was published in the May 10 issue and is reproduced here with permission. Contra Mundum is Latin for ‘against the world;’ the phrase is usually attributed to Athanasius who was exiled for defending Christian orthodoxy.

Letters to the editor should be sent to: editorial@investigatemagazine.DELETE.com

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Contra Mundum: The Judgmental Jesus

The first hurdle was to get his paper accepted, which is no small feat but one that Glenn has pulled off – well done Glenn!

The second hurdle is to raise the funds to get there, which is a work in progress…

Glenn’s situation is much like Matt’s. Glenn holds a PhD in Philosophy and a Masters in Theology (the opposite way around to Matt). He is a very good Christian philosopher; I referenced him in my own philosophy of law paper on the subject, Matt has cited from him also  in several works (see our Glenn Peoples tag) and we both view Glenn’s blog to be MandM’s toughest competition in the NZ blog rankings for our niche .  Like Matt,  since graduating, Glenn has struggled to find work in his field. He currently works for the IRD and earns a very modest wage. Glenn is trying to find a position using his skills, if not in New Zealand, anywhere in the world so this conference is not only an opportunity for him to meet one of the world’s best living philosophers in Glenn’s field, it is not just an opportunity to have New Zealand Christian philosophy showcased at Oxford but it is a chance to help someone with a gift take another step towards using that gift to provide for his family and to support the broader church. Donations are currently being gathered and more information is available here if you would like to help and/or follow his progress.

3. Valliant contends that it is absurd to suggest that “the US declaration of independence is based on Judeo-Christian ideas.” His reasons, however, are once again based on ignorance of Christian intellectual history.

First he ridicules the idea of Christian influence, “We are asked to believe that it took a mere 1,776 years of reading that darned Bible before any of those great and learned Christian scholars figured out its true political implications!” Valliant seems blissfully unaware that many ideas expressed in the declaration were expressed by Christian writers sometimes hundreds of years prior to 1776.

The claim that there is a creator and that this is self-evident, are ideas that go back centuries in Christian theology. Moreover, the contention that people are created equal is found in the book of Job and would not have been contested by many medieval or patristic theologians.  Mark Murphy has noted that the idea of ‘consent of the governed’ was also accepted in political thought of the Middle Ages.[1] In fact, a form of ‘consent of the governed’ was actually a key feature of feudalism; under this system the monarch was elected or chosen by the land owners and could be deposed by the land owners.[2] Nicholas Wolterstorff has documented that the notion of natural rights had its origins in medieval canon law and theological reflections of the middle ages.[3] Many of the ideas expressed in the declaration were defended centuries earlier by Calvinist tracts such as Lex Rex and Vindicae Contra Tyrannos. In fact, medieval theologians criticised absolute monarchy, debated the question of just revolutions and so on resulting in the birth of the Magna Carta.

The declaration simply repeats the argument for liberty, put forward by John Locke in his Two Treatise of Civil Government. Locke’s argument occurred in the context of an exegetical debate with Robert Filmer about whether or not the bible supported absolute monarchy. Locke’s main argument was that because human beings are created by God, they have an inalienable right to life and liberty and so could not licitly sell themselves or give another person arbitrary or total power over them. In making this argument, Locke actually appropriated an ancient rabbinical argument against slavery which was alluded to by the Apostle Paul (1 Cor 7:23) and is implicit in the Torah (Lev 25: 42). Paul’s appropriation of this argument was the basis for the Christian abolition of slavery in the early Middle Ages. Valliant’s ignorance about what Christians did not support or write about prior to 1776 does not mean that these texts do not exist.

Valliant continues with the claim that Paul told Christians “to just ‘obey’ the governmental ‘authorities’ placed over us, because God has appointed them, by St. Paul himself, who likely wrote during the reign of the monster Nero.” This again is a caricature, as I have pointed out elsewhere, the context (which Valliant ignores) qualifies Paul’s command. Moreover, the passage Valliant cites was written during the early part of Nero’s reign when Nero was strongly influenced by Seneca the Younger and Barrus and his rule was widely considered to be competent and relatively enlightened. When Nero later degenerated into a monster the scripture, rather scathingly, describes Nero as a satanic beast whom Christians are required to resist – not obey!

Valliant also seems blithely unaware of the fact that Paul wrote as a prisoner of Rome and was himself executed by Nero for refusing to pay homage to Nero (as were many other Christians). His picture then of Paul as a proponent of advocating unqualified obedience to Nero is simply inaccurate.

4. Valliant similarly quotes Paul’s admonition to slaves to obey their masters in contrast to the US Framers who “thought slavery was evil, too, and it was this belief that provided the basis (e.g., see the Gettysburg Address) for later abolishing it” as evidence that abolitionist ideas originate from ancient Greek/Aristotelian thought and not Christian theology. Apart from the fact that Jefferson was himself a slave owner, Valliant’s understanding is extremely selective.

First, opposition to slavery in various forms has a long history in Christian thought and practice. It predates the American Founding by hundreds, maybe, thousands of years. Early Christians advocated emancipating slaves, a practice exhorted by several leading theologians and early church councils.  W.E.H. Lecky contends that early Christian saints such as Melania, Ovidius, Chromatius, and Hermes, between them liberated almost 20,000 slaves.[4] Later, in 315, Constantine made it a capital offence to steal a child and bring it up as a slave. Justinian, in the 6^th century, abolished earlier roman laws prohibiting the freeing of slaves. Similarly St Bathilde, a runaway slave who became the wife of King Clovis II in the 9^th century, campaigned against the slave trade as did other notables, St Patrick in the 5^th century, St Anskar in the 9^th century and St Wulfstan, St Anselm in the 11^th century. Rodney Stark notes that Christian opposition to slavery in the lead to its effective abolition within in Europe during the Middle Ages. Stark goes on to document that Pope Eugene IV (1431-1447), Pope Pius II (1458-1464), Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484), Pope Paul III (1534-1549), Pope Urban VIII (1623-1644) issued papal bulls against slavery. In addition, the Roman Inquisition condemned slavery on 20 March 1686.

All of the above occurred hundreds of years prior to the US Founding Fathers.[5] In fact, evangelical Christians, such as William Wilberforce, had brought about the abolition of slavery peacefully in the British several decades before the US fought a civil war over it. Moreover, Stark’s analysis shows that the earliest abolitionist tracts within the US were whttp://www.mandm.org.nz/wp-admin/post-new.phpritten by Puritans – actually by one of the judges at the Salem witch trials. The abolitionist movements in the US were overwhelmingly religious in orientation.[6] The suggestion then that opposition to slavery was without Christian precedent and was a novel idea proposed by the revival of pre-Christian ideas in the Enlightenment is implausible. The issue of slavery is a particularly bad example to substantiate Valliant’s thesis given that in the pre-Christian pagan world slavery was widely practiced and accepted. In fact Aristotle, Valliant’s pre-Christian Greek hero, famously defended slavery (in three chapters no less) contending the enslavement of other races was natural.[7]

Valliant’s reading of scripture is also questionable. While it is true that Paul exhorted slaves to obey their masters, this by itself does not entail support for slavery anymore than my paying my taxes constitutes my agreement with taxation laws. Moreover, Valliant ignores the numerous other things both the scriptures and Paul stated about slavery, which contradict and condemn the practice of slavery that existed in America. In fact, the enlightenment philosopher who most influenced the US, John Locke, appealed to these very texts both explicitly and implicitly, to condemn slavery. Once again, Valliant ignores crucial facts of Christian intellectual history to come to his stereotypical conclusions.

[1] Mark Murphy “Natural Law, Consent, and Political Obligation” Social Philosophy & Policy 18 (2001) 70-92.
[2] Regine Pernoud,  Those Terrible Middle Ages : Debunking the Myths (San Francisco: Ignatius Press,  2000) 128-129.
[3] Nicolas Wolterstorff  Justice Rights and Wrongs (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008).
[4] W.E.H. Lecky History of European Morals: From Augustus to Charlemagne (New York: D. Appleton, 1921) 2:69.
[5] Rodney Stark For the Glory of God: How Monotheism led to Reformations, Science, Witch-hunts and the end of Slavery (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003).
[6] Ibid.
[7] Aristotle The Politics Bk I iii, iv, v.

RELATED POSTS:
Freedom, Science and Christianity: A Response to James Valliant Part I
The Theological Foundations of the Enlightenment Philosophers
The Theology of the Declaration of Independence
The “Dark Ages” and Other Propaganda
Guest Post: James Hannam on Dan Brown’s History of Science
Slavery, John Locke and the Bible
666 The Number of the Beast
R 13: Romans, Revelations and the Role of the State

Plantinga suggests that such phrases should “be understood more like a person who in the context of a boxing match states, “knock his block off, hand him his head” or in a football or baseball game where it is stated that the team should “kill the opposition” or that “we totally slaughtered them.”[1] In reading Joshua, Wolterstorff defends the thesis that the relevant passages are hyperbolic. He argues essentially that:

(a) the picture of total conquest and annihilation of populations is incompatible with what is said elsewhere in Joshua and Judges;
(b) this is obvious to anyone who reads the narrative straight through without artificially dividing the text into chapter divisions and verses;
(c) the redactors or authors would not have been so mindless as to accidentally put obviously contradictory accounts into one narrative;
(d) the annihilation language appears stereotyped and formulaic whereas the other passages read like more down-to-earth history.[2]

On the basis of these points Wolterstorff argues that texts are hyperboles, similar to a football player who says “we slaughtered the opposition just like Coach told us to”[3]

In my previous post I addressed (a); I argued, in some detail, that the picture of Joshua conquering all southern and northern Canaan, killing every inhabitant of the relevant cities and regions and leaving no survivors, if taken literally, contradicts what is affirmed in the rest of the book of Joshua and what is affirmed in Judges. I also agree with Wolterstorff about (b); to any person who reads the text straight through, not breaking it artificially into chapters and verses, and who then reads the book of Judges, these contradictions are fairly obvious. These two points alongside (c) make it improbable that the text should be read in a literal fashion.

I think Wolterstorff understates (c). If, as Wolterstorff believes, the primary author of scripture is God then obviously the author of the text is an intelligent person who is unlikely to have deliberately (or accidentally) authored an obviously contradictory narrative.

Now it may be contended that an appeal to divine authorship in this way begs the question, however, I think this is mistaken. As I understand the objection, the sceptic who claims that God commanded genocide is offering a reductio ad absurdium; he or she starts by assuming that whatever God commands is right and that scripture is the word of God and then derives from these assumptions the absurd conclusion that genocide is not wrong. The question then is whether, granting these assumptions, such a conclusion does, in fact, follow.

Taken together, (a),(b),(c) and (d) do make a hyperbolic reading probable. If the text cannot sensibly be taken literally, and if there is some evidence of formulaic, ritualistic language in the text, then that would suggest some kind of non-literal reading and a hyperbolic one certainly makes sense of the data.

Wolterstorff’s case has some merit, however, I think it can be considerably strengthened. Wolterstorff limits his case to what I call internal evidence, evidence from within the text itself. I think, however, there is some interesting external evidence, evidence from how particular terms and language is used in other ancient near eastern histories of conquests and battles, which could be added to Wolterstorff’s argument to make it significantly more plausible. Here I will cite three lines of such evidence.

The first is that rhetoric of total conquest, complete annihilation and destruction of the enemy, killing everyone, leaving no survivors, etc, is a common hyperbolic way of describing a victory in ancient near eastern histories of the same period. Kenneth Kitchen notes,

[T]he type of rhetoric in question was a regular feature of military reports in the second and first millennia, as others have made very clear. … In the later fifteenth century Tuthmosis III could boast “the numerous army of Mitanni, was overthrown within the hour, annihilated totally, like those (now) non-existent” –- whereas, in fact, the forces of Mitanni lived to fight many another day, in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries. Some centuries later, about 840/830, Mesha king of Moab could boast that “Israel has utterly perished for always” – a rather premature judgment at that date, by over a century! And so on, ad libitum. It is in this frame of reference that the Joshua rhetoric must also be understood.[4]

In a comprehensive comparative study of ancient near eastern conquest accounts K Lawson Younger documents stylistic and literary similarities between Joshua and reports of wars written by the Hittites, Egyptians and Assyrians including this kind of hyperbole. Merenptah’s Stele describes a skirmish with Israel as follows, “Yanoam is nonexistent; Israel is wasted, his seed is not.”[5] Here a skirmish in which Egypt prevailed is described hyperbolically in terms of the total annihilation of Israel. Sennacherib uses similar hyperbole, “The soldiers of Hirimme, dangerous enemies, I cut down with the sword; and not one escaped.”[6] Mursilli II records making “Mt. Asharpaya empty (of humanity)” and the “mountains of Tarikarimu empty (of humanity).”[7] Mesha (whom Kitchen cited as stating “Israel has utterly perished for always”) describes victories in terms of him fighting against a town, taking it and then killing all the inhabitants of the town.[8] Similarly, The Bulletin of Ramses II, an historical narrative of Egyptian military campaigns into Syria, narrates Egypt’s considerably less than decisive victory at the battle of Kadesh with the following rhetoric,

His majesty slew the entire force of the wretched foe from Hatti, together with his great chiefs and all his brothers, as well as all the chiefs of all the countries that had come with him, their infantry and their chariotry falling on their faces one upon the other. His majesty slaughtered and slew them in their places; … He took no note of the millions of foreigners; he regarded them as chaff.[9] [Emphasis original]

The hyperbolic use of language similar to that in Joshua is strikingly evident.

Second, comparisons between the book of Joshua, and other ancient near eastern conquest accounts from the same period, demonstrate some important stylistic parallels. Commenting on the structure of the campaigns mentioned in Joshua 9-12, Kitchen notes;

This kind of report profile is familiar to readers of ancient Near Eastern military reports, not least in the second millennium. Most striking is the example of the campaign annals of Tuthmosis III of Egypt in his years 22-42 (ca. 1458-1438). … the pharaoh there gives a very full account of his initial victory at Megiddo, by contrast with the far more summary and stylized reports of the ensuing sixteen subsequent campaigns. Just like Joshua against up to seven kings in south Canaan and four-plus up north.[10] [Emphasis added]

Kitchen adds,

The Ten Year Annals of the Hittite king Mursil II (later fourteenth century) are also instructive. Exactly like the “prefaces” in the two Joshua war reports (10:1-4; 11:1-5), detailing hostility by a number of foreign rulers against Joshua and Israel as the reason for the wars, so in his annals Mursil II gives us a long “preface” on the hostility of neighbouring rulers and people groups that lead to his campaigns.[11] [Emphasis added]

Kitchen adds other examples. He observes that the same formulaic style found in Joshua is also used in the Amarna letters EA 185 and EA 186.[12] Similarly, before his major campaigns, “Joshua is commissioned by YHWH not to fear (cf. 5:13-15; 10:8; 11:6). So also by Ptah and Amun were Merenptah in Egypt, and Tuthmosis IV long before him: and likewise Mursil II of the Hittites by his gods (10T-Year Annals, etc.), all in the second millennium besides such kings as Assurbanipal of Assyria down to the seventh century.”[13]

Younger notes similarities in the preface, structure and even the way the treaty with the Gibeonites is recorded between Joshua and various ancient near eastern accounts.[14] Like Joshua, The 10 Year Annals of Mursilli and Sargon’s Letter to the God record a divine intervention where the God sends hailstones on the enemy.[15] Tuthmosis III has a similar story regarding a meteor.[16] Joshua follows ancient near eastern convention in describing numerous battles occurring in a single day or within a single campaign.[17] Ancient near eastern accounts also, like Joshua, repeatedly make reference to the enemy “melting with fear.”[18] Even the way post-battle pursuits are set out and described shows similarities with similar pursuits in ancient near eastern literature.[19] I could mention more examples; the point is that “when the composition and rhetoric of the Joshua narratives in chapters 9-12 are compared to the the conventions of writing about conquests in Egyptian, Hittite, Akkadian, Moabite, and Aramaic texts, they are revealed to be very similar”.[20]

Finally, both Kitchen and Younger note that such hyperbolic language is used in several places within the book of Joshua itself. In Joshua 10:20, for example, we are told that Joshua and the sons of Israel had “finished destroying” and “completely destroyed” their enemies. Immediately, however, the text, affirms that the “survivors went to fortified cities.” In this context, the language of total destruction is clearly hyperbolic.

When these lines of external evidence are conjoined with the internal evidence that Wolterstorff proposes (and that which I elaborated on in my previous post) seven things are evident:

(a) the picture of total conquest and annihilation of populations is incompatible with what is said elsewhere in Joshua and Judges;
(b) this is obvious to anyone who reads the narrative straight through without artificially dividing the text into chapter divisions and verses;
(c) the redactors or authors would not have been so mindless as to accidentally put obviously contradictory accounts into one narrative;
(d) the annihilation language appears stereotyped and formulaic whereas the other passages read like more down-to-earth history;
(e) the kind of formulaic language used in Joshua is a common form of rhetorical hyperbole for describing a victory in ancient near eastern accounts;
(f) Joshua is written in accord with the literary and rhetorical conventions typical of such ancient near eastern accounts;
(e) the rhetorical use of “finished destroying” and “completely destroyed” is attested to elsewhere in the book of Joshua.

In light of these seven lines of evidence, I am inclined to think that the case for the reading that Wolterstorff defends is compelling.

While space prevents me exploring all the implications of this conclusion, it is worthwhile commenting on one. Wolterstorff argues,

On the assumption that Deuteronomy and Joshua are part of the same sequence of books then I submit that this interpretation of Joshua forces a back interpretation of Deuteronomy. If ‘struck down all the inhabitants with the edge of the sword is a literary convention when used to describe Joshua’s exploits then it must, likewise, be a literary convention when used by Moses in his instructions to Israel in general and to Joshua in particular. Remember this is one sequence edited just before the end of captivity.[21]

I think Wolterstorff is correct here. The same point can be seen from the text of Joshua itself,

So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded. (Joshua 10:40 NIV) [Emphasis added]

Similarly we see,

Everyone in it they put to the sword. They totally destroyed them, not sparing anything that breathed, and he burned up Hazor itself. Joshua took all these royal cities and their kings and put them to the sword. He totally destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded.” (Joshua 11:11-12 NIV) [Emphasis added]

Also,

So that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the LORD had commanded Moses (Joshua 11:20b NIV) [Emphasis added]

As the LORD commanded his servant Moses, so Moses commanded Joshua, and Joshua did it; he left nothing undone of all that the LORD commanded Moses. (Joshua 11:15 NIV) [Emphasis added]

The text of Joshua clearly and explicitly states that what Joshua did fulfilled the command that Moses had given regarding the Canaanites in Deuteronomy. If the language of “putting all the people to the sword”, “leaving no survivors”, “totally destroying”, “striking all the inhabitants with the edge of the sword”, and so on, is hyperbolic (as the evidence suggests it is) then the command cannot have been intended to be taken literally.

[1] Alvin Plantinga “Comments on Evan Fales’ Satanic Versus: Moral Chaos in Holy Writ” a paper presented to My Ways Are Not Your Ways: The Character of the God of the Hebrew Bible Conference at the centre for Philosophy of Religion, University of Notre Dame, Friday 11 September 2009.
[2] Nicholas Wolterstorff “Reading Joshua” a paper presented to My Ways Are Not Your Ways: The Character of the God of the Hebrew Bible Conference at the centre for Philosophy of Religion, University of Notre Dame, Saturday 12 September 2009.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Kenneth Kitchen On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids MI: Erdmans Publishing Co, 2003) 174.
[5] K Lawson Younger Jr Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990) 227.
[6] Ibid 228.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid, 227.
[9] Ibid, 245.
[10] Kitchen, note 4, 170.
[11] Ibid, 170.
[12] Ibid, 172.
[13] Ibid, 174-175.
[14] Younger, note 5, 200-204.
[15] Ibid, 208-211.
[16] Ibid, 217.
[17] Ibid, 216.
[18] Ibid, 258-260.
[19] Ibid, 220-225.
[20] Ziony Zevit The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (London and New York: Continuum, 2001) 114.
[21] Wolterstorff, note 2.

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In chapters 7 through 12, [the book of Joshua] treats us to a chilling chronicle of the 31 kingdoms, and all the cities therein, that fell victim to Joshua’s, and God’s, genocidal policies. Time and again we read the phrases “he utterly destroyed every person who was in it,” “he left no survivor,” and “there was no one left who breathed.”[1]

Similarly, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong cites passages in Joshua with the same point in mind.[2]

The objection that Bradley and Armstrong raise in highlighting these passages is that Christians are committed to an inconsistent set of propositions.

[1] Any act that God commands is morally permissible.
[2] The scriptures are an authoritative revelation of God’s commands.
[3] It is morally impermissible for anyone to commit genocide.
[4] According to the book of Joshua, God commanded Israel to commit genocide.

If we are to rationally affirm both [1] and [2] then we must give up either [3] or [4]. So which one should we reject?

Philip Quinn has developed a way of addressing clashes such as this. He suggests that we can draw on a principle whereby “whenever two conflicting claims differ in epistemic status, the claim with the lower epistemic status is to be rejected.”

[3]Given this approach, if a particular interpretation of any passage conflicts with one of our moral intuitions then we should ask whether or not the case for that interpretation is as convincing as the principle that it clashes with. Now, the principle that genocide is wrong is, I think, a highly plausible one. Therefore, if one is to prefer [3] to [4] then the case for a literal reading must at least be this plausible, and preferably even more plausible. In this series of posts I will argue, perhaps surprisingly to some, that [4] is doubtful. While it is true that taken in isolation and interpreted in a strict literal fashion the book of Joshua does appear to state that God commanded Genocide, I contend that when the text is read in its literary and textual context this conclusion is far from evident and is, in fact, rather questionable.

In the tenth chapter of the book of Joshua we read,

They [Joshua and his troops] took the city, its king and its villages, and put them to the sword. Everyone in it they totally destroyed. They left no survivors. They did to Debir and its king as they had done to Libnah and its king and to Hebron. So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded. Joshua subdued them from Kadesh Barnea to Gaza and from the whole region of Goshen to Gibeon. (Joshua 10:39-41)

This text summarises Joshua’s campaign in southern Canaan. The northern campaign is summarised in a similar fashion in the following chapter,

So Joshua took this entire land: the hill country, all the Negev, the whole region of Goshen, the western foothills, the Arabah and the mountains of Israel with their foothills, from Mount Halak, which rises toward Seir, to Baal Gad in the Valley of Lebanon below Mount Hermon. He captured all their kings and struck them down, putting them to death. Joshua waged war against all these kings for a long time. Except for the Hivites living in Gibeon, not one city made a treaty of peace with the Israelites, who took them all in battle. For it was the LORD himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the LORD had commanded Moses. At that time Joshua came and wiped out the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel; Joshua utterly destroyed them with their towns. No Anakites were left in Israelite territory; only in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod did any survive. So Joshua took the entire land, just as the LORD had directed Moses, and he gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal divisions. Then the land had rest from war. (Joshua 11:16-23)

If these passages are taken in a strict literal fashion and read in isolation from the proceeding narrative they record the divinely authorised commission of genocide. Taken literally these passages state three things.

Firstly, that Joshua conquered and subdued the entire regions of southern and northern Canaan. Verse 11:23 states that “Joshua took the entire land” and then “gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal divisions.” This suggests that the region in question is the same land that is later divided between the Israelite tribes, which was the entire land of Canaan.

Secondly, the passage repeatedly emphasises that Joshua exterminated all the Canaanites in this region. Verse 11:21 states “Joshua came and wiped out the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah.” Verse 11:22 states that no Anakites were left living in Israeli territory after this campaign.  Repeatedly it states that Joshua left “no survivors” and “destroyed everything that breathed” in “the entire land.” Alongside these general claims the text goes to identifies several specific places and cities where Joshua exterminated everyone and left no survivors and killed all who breathed. These include Hebron, Debir, the hill country and the Negev.

Thirdly, the text states that God commanded these actions. Verse 23 identifies the commands with those laid down in the Law of Moses, which refers back to passages like Deut 20:16-19 and Deut 7.1-5.

The first thing I want to note is that the text should not be read in isolation from the narrative in which this occurs. This hermeneutical point may seem rather obvious but when it is taken seriously immediate and obvious problems occur with a strictly literal reading of the ‘genocide passages’ I mention above. The most glaringly obvious issue relates to the opening of the book of Judges. In the first chapter of Judges we read of events that occurred after the death of Joshua (and, hence, after the campaigns mentioned in Josh 10 and 11). Here it is explicitly stated that Canaanites are living in the land which had been allotted to various Israeli tribes, the land that Joshua is said to have conquered and “left no survivors” in. Note that this was not a small remnant. They existed in such numbers that each of the tribes of Israel needed to fight in order to dislodge them from the land. Several of the tribes were unable to do so and so Israel failed to dislodge them.

Of particular interest, however, are the several cities and regions mentioned. In the first chapter we are told that the Canaanites lived Gaza (Judg 1:18), the Negev (1:9), in the hill country  (Judg 1:9) in Debir (Judg 1:11), in Hebron (Judg 1:10) and in the the western foothills (Judg 1:9). Moreover, they did so in such numbers and strength that they had to be driven out by force. These are the same cities that Joshua 10 tells us Joshua had annihilated and left no survivors in.  Moreover, the text explicitly states that Anakites are in Hebron, yet Joshua 11:22 tells us that “No Anakites were left in Israelite territory.” This seems rather odd if Joshua had exterminated everyone there and left no survivors. It is also odd given that Joshua is said, in the genocide passages, to have conquered and subdued the entire region.

Moreover, the account of what God commanded also differs in Judges 2:1. Here no mention of genocide or annihilation is made, instead we hear of how God had promised to drive them out and has commanded the Israelites to not to make treaties with them and to destroy their shrines. Taken in a straight-forward literal manner then, Joshua’s actions are at odds with the first two chapters of Judges.

It is not just Judges that this problem occurs in. There are numerous places within the book of Joshua itself where the same picture is presented. As noted, Joshua 11 ends by stating that “the entire land, just as the LORD had directed Moses” was given “as an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal divisions.” When the text turns to giving an account of these tribal divisions it is evident that the Israelites do not actually occupy it, but living, breathing, Canaanites do.

The allotments begin with God telling Joshua, “You are very old, and there are still very large areas of land to be taken over” (Josh 13:1). Moreover, when one examines the allotment given to Judah we see Caleb asking permission to drive the  Anakites (Josh14: 11) from the hill countries and we also hear how Caleb has to defeat Anakites living in Hebron and, after this, marches against the people “living in Debir” (Josh 15:13-19). Similarly it is evident with several of the other allotments that the people have yet to drive Canaanites entrenched in the area and that Israelites were not always successful in doing so.

We read, for example, that Ephraimites and Manassites “did not dislodge the Canaanites living in Gezer; to this day the Canaanites live among the people of Ephraim” (Josh 16:10). Similarly, in Chapter 17 it states “Yet the Manassites were not able to occupy these towns, for the Canaanites were determined to live in that region. However, when the Israelites grew stronger, they subjected the Canaanites to forced labor but did not drive them out completely” (Joshua 17:12-13). We hear that “Danites had difficulty taking possession of their territory, so they went up and attacked Leshem, took it, put it to the sword and occupied it. They settled in Leshem and named it Dan after their forefather” (Joshua 19:47). Here, we see the same land said to be subdued and conquered by Joshua in battles where he exterminated and left alive nothing that breathed. This land is yet to be occupied by the tribes of Israel and is occupied by Canaanites, often heavily armed and deeply entrenched (17:17-18).

Brevard Childs notes the apparent contradiction,

Critical scholars have long since pointed out the tension – usually it is called a contradiction – in the portrayal of the conquest of the land. On the one hand, the conquest is pictured in the main source of Josh. 1-12 as a unified assault against the inhabitants of the land under the leadership of Joshua which succeeded in conquering the entire land. On the other hand, there is a conflicting view of the conquest represented by Judges 1 and its parallels in Joshua which appears to picture the conquest as undertaken by individual tribes, extending over a long period beyond the age of Joshua, and unsuccessful in driving out the Canaanites from much of the land.[4]

More recently Kenneth Kitchen has taken issue with Childs’ picture of Joshua 1-12. He notes that, apart from the passages cited at the beginning of this post, a careful reading of Joshua 1-12 makes it clear that Israel did not actually occupy or conquer the areas mentioned at all. Kitchen notes that after crossing the Jordan the Israelites set up camp in Gilgal “on the east border of Jericho” (Joshua 4:19). He notes that after every battle in the next six chapters the text explicitly states that they returned to Gilgal,

The conflict with Canaanite city-state rulers in the southern part of Canaan is worth close examination. After the battle for Gibeon, we see the Hebrews advancing upon six towns in order, attacking and capturing them, killing their local kings and such inhabitants that had not gotten clear, and moving on, not holding on to those places. Twice over (10:15, 43), it is clearly stated that their strike force returned to base camp at Gilgal.  So there was no sweeping take over and occupation of this region at this point. And no total destruction of the towns attacked.[5]

Kitchen goes on to note,

What happened in the south was repeated up north. Hazor was both leader and famed center for the north Canaanite kinglets. Thus as in the south the Hebrew strike force defeated the opposition; captured their towns, killed rulers and less mobile inhabitants, symbolically burned Hazor and Hazor only[6] to emphasis its end to its local supremacy. Again Israel did not attempt to immediately hold on to Galilee: they remained based at Gilgal (14:6).[7]

Kitchen notes that the first “real indication of a move in occupation beyond Gilgal comes in 18:4.” This is after the first allotment of “lands to be occupied are made” and as we saw above the Israelites did not find occupying these allotments easy. He concludes, “these campaigns were essentially disabling raids: they were not territorial conquests with instant Hebrew occupation. The text is very clear about this.”[8]

So a straight-forward, literal, reading of the passages cited at the beginning of this post does not cohere with the rest of the narrative. The best account I have come across for explaining this apparent contradiction between a literal reading of the “genocide passages” and the rest of Joshua and Judges is one recently defended by Nicholas Wolterstorff.[9] Wolterstorff suggests that the phrases such as, “Everyone in it they totally destroyed,” “They left no survivors,” etc are not intended to be read literally but function as hyperboles. The analogy he gives is of a high school student who, after a baseball game states, “we totally slaughtered the opposition, we annihilated them just as coach told us to.”[10]

Plantinga suggests a similar line as a possibility. That phrases such as, “put to death men women infants and cattle” are to be understood more like a person who in the context of a boxing match states, “knock his block off, hand him his head” or  in a football or baseball game where it is stated that the team should “kill the opposition” or that “we totally slaughtered them.”[11] Understood in a non-literal sense the phrases probably meant “something like, attack them, defeat them, drive them out; not literally kill every man, woman, child donkey and the like.”[12] Wolterstorff elaborates,

When a high-school basket ball player says his team slaughtered the other team last night he’s not asserting, literally now, that they slaughter the other team. What is he asserting? Not easy to tell. That they scored a decisive victory? Maybe, but suppose they barely eked out a win? Was he lying? Maybe not. Maybe he was speaking with a wink of the eye hyperbole. High school kids do.[13]

In the same way,

To say Joshua struck down all the inhabitants with the edge of the sword is a way of saying something like Israel scored a decisive victory and once you recognise the presence of hyperbole it is not even clear how decisive the victories were. Joshua did not conquer all the cities in the land nor did he slaughter all the inhabitants in the cities he did conquer. The book of Joshua does not say that he did.[14]

In my next Sunday Study, Sunday Study: Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part II,  I will attempt to defend Wolterstorff’s position.

[1] Raymond Bradley “A moral Argument for Atheism” Presented at the University of Western Washington, May 27, 1999, and–in a revised form–at the University of Auckland, September 29, 1999.
[2] Walter Sinnott-Armstrong “Why Traditional Theism Cannot Provide an Adequate Foundation for Morality” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics eds Robert K Garcia and Nathan L King (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008) 110.
[3] Philip Quinn “Religion and Politics” in ed William Mann The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Religion (Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005) 316.
[4] Brevard Childs An Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Fortress Press Philadelphia: 1979) 247.
[5] Kenneth Kitchen On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003) 162.
[6] See Joshua 11:13 “But Israel burned none of the towns that stood on mounds except Hazor, which Joshua did burn.”
[7] Kitchen, above n 5.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Nicholas Wolterstorff “Reading Joshua” a paper presented to “My Ways Are Not Your Ways: The Character of the God of the Hebrew Bible” Conference at the centre for Philosophy of Religion, University of Notre Dame, Saturday 12 September 2009
[10] Ibid.
[11] Alvin Plantinga “Comments on Evan Fales’ Satanic Versus: Moral Chaos in Holy Writ” a paper presented to “My Ways Are Not Your Ways: The Character of the God of the Hebrew Bible” Conference at the centre for Philosophy of Religion, University of Notre Dame, Friday 11 September 2009.
[12] Ibid – stated by Plantinga in the Q&A session.
[13] Nicholas Wolterstorff “Response to Louise Anthony” a paper presented to “My Ways Are Not Your Ways: The Character of the God of the Hebrew Bible” Conference at the centre for Philosophy of Religion, University of Notre Dame. Saturday 12 September 2009.
[14] Wolterstorff, above n 9.

RELATED POSTS:
Sunday Study: Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part II

Now in no way do I think I was treated unfairly, it was afterall a Catholic School and this was something that was  obvious both from the name on the advertisement in the education gazette and from the website linked to from the same ad. The function of this school was not simply to impart information; it was to imbibe a particular religious way of life, some of it involving what Nicholas Wolterstorff calls “educating for responsible action,”

The ultimate goal of all education, as Christians see it, is that those who are taught shall live in such a way as to carry out their responsibilities to God and find joy and delight in so doing. … But if responsible action is to ensue, more is necessary than for the students to have knowledge of the relevant matters and the ability to perform the relevant actions. Knowledge and ability are not yet performance. It is also necessary that the students’ tendencies, ranging all the way from their unreflective habits to highly self-conscious commitments, be those of acting in accord with the normative laws for right action. Education, accordingly, must have among its goals to secure–always in morally defensible ways–the formation of right tendencies.[1] [Emphasis original]

Wolterstorff argues that modelling plays an important role in cultivating tendencies. He notes that a series of studies show that students who view other people resisting the temptation to act in an immoral or inappropriate way fortify their own resistance to temptation.[2] Wolterstorff states, “The evidence seems to be that not only do a model’s low standards influence the student to lower the standards which otherwise he or she would adopt, but also a model’s high standards influence the child to raise his or hers.”[3] [Emphasis original]. An important caveat of this is that studies show “the self-denial induced by a stringent model gives way rather readily when the subject is confronted by another model with lower standards.”[4] Because the school was seeking to train students to internalise a Catholic ethos, and an important part of the pedagogy of internalising such an ethos is modelling, it follows that leaders within communities committed to this goal must themselves follow and be committed to the basic moral teachings of the community. I was not. I am a protestant and so would buck (internally) against many of the tendencies the RE department were trying to teach.

This does not seem terribly controversial to me. Schools dedicated to inculculating a religious way of life into their students have the right to demand that the leaders in their schools be committed to and reflect this way of life. It is perfectly reasonable for Jewish schools to expect people in positions of leadership to be faithful followers of the Torah. It is perfectly reasonable for Muslim schools to expect leaders in their community to be faithful Muslims; for atheist schools devoted to promoting atheism to expect their leaders to be atheists.

I reflect on this because of the recent outcry in response to a Campbell Live story that a Christian school in Rangiora, Rangiora New Life School, expelled a student for getting pregnant and subsequently revoked the deputy head-boy status given to her fiancé, the father of her child. Now, in light of what the media has reported, I will say I am not in agreement with everything the school did (I should qualify this by stating that I have very little faith that the media to report events like this terribly accurately – so take that concession with a grain of salt).

For example, Ollie Sterrit the deputy head-boy and his fiancé Sara Etherington stated that “if we decided not to keep her [abort their daughter] they didn’t support it, and they still didn’t support us if we did keep it. So we were stuck in the middle and couldn’t do anything to please them.” The media reports that the teen couple “are engaged and determined to stay together.” Now, I am inclined to think that if a teenage couple respond to getting pregnant unmarried by taking their responsibilities seriously by refusing to kill their child, getting engaged, making a commitment to stay together and to continue their education they should be supported and commended for doing the right thing. They are of course not yet “legally married” but given their age, in this country, that is impossible; hence it is not clear cut to me that this couple’s choice should not be supported. In fact, I think that a scriptural case could be made that people in this situation can, in certain circumstances, be viewed as being in a constituted kind of common law marriage and that, in fact, it is the duty of the father to marry the woman he has impregnated and to take his responsibilities to her and the child seriously (which is what appears to be happening in this situation).  However, Sara’s parents tell a different story (see the second comment on the Campbell Live link) “We have consistently tried to encourage Ollie and Sara to see the bigger picture (others affected by there decisions) all along, their choice of course. Sara has had every love and support from RNLS  [the school] and her family.“

Whatever the truth is on the matter of the school supporting the couple, stripping someone of a position of leadership is not the same thing as not supporting them -  though not permitting Sara to finish her education (she was apparently asked to leave the school) might be. Also giving someone a position of leadership, knowing about the pregnancy and then removing it from them, perhaps demonstrated a lack of wisdom in the first place on the part of the school or some dud processes (or bad media reporting).

However, these issues are not the focus of my concern in this blog post. First, Dave Crampton at Big News seems to suggest that the school had no policy on sex outside of marriage and as such they could not claim that this was part of the ethos they were trying to impart, meaning the school had no right to suddenly make an issue of the sexual conduct of its students, “The schools handbook has no mention of policies on sex, although swearing and alcohol are forbidden in school grounds, as are piercings for males.” If you visit Rangiora New Life’s website a very different picture emerges. First of all, the name of the school  “New Life” immediately suggests it is evangelical or pentecostal. On the front page the school mission states “Providing quality Christian education that equips and inspires all students to reach their life’s potential in order to serve God’s purposes.” There is a clear indication by the use of words such as “their life’s potential” and “serve God’s purpose” that the type of education they are seeking to inculculate is holistic, they hope that it will impact all aspects of the students’ lives. Click through to their Mission, Vision and Values page and you’ll find under the heading “Vision,”

GODLINESS – Building character in the students that will enable them to lead by example.

LIFE SKILLS – Equipping students with skills in relationships, home-life and vocation.

EVANGELISM – Taking every opportunity to share the life changing message of the gospel.

SERVICE – Impacting our region and beyond through sacrificial service and giving. [Emphasis added]

Here we see concern with character, leading by example, reference to relationship skills, home-life and vocation tell us they mean more than relationships with their school peers and teachers. Evangelism and reference impacting the region and beyond show, again, the broader ethos of the school. The “guiding values” on this page continue these motifs and among these we find “Ensuring school relationships, procedures and policies reflect Biblical principles and the highest Christian conduct” and “Promoting personal responsibility in learning and conduct, and community responsibility by way of service and leadership skill.” Does anyone really think, on reading these, that banging your fellow teenage school peer and knocking her up is compatible with Rangiora New Life’s understanding of these terms and is the sort of example in leadership or high biblical standard that the school is seeking to promote by example and that this sort of conduct is what the other parents with kids in the school want modelled to their kids?

Now, as Madeleine points out, when contracts are formed (I’m getting at here Dave Crampton’s contractual suggestion) all aspects of the communication between the parties, the information freely offered about the parties states of mind, intent, etc as well as the surrounding documentation speak to how the minutae of the handbooks and policies should be read and interpreted. The school is clearly a conservative, pentecostal/evangelical bible believing Christian school. Did anyone miss the memo that people with such beliefs tend to frown on pre-marital sex and that such people have high expectations of the example of their leaders – that’s why church leaders being hypocrites is such a big deal.

Second, what is my concern is the widespread belief of some commentators that a religious school cannot demand that leaders in their community abide by the moral teachings of the religious ethos the school seeks to inculculate. Idiot/Savant of No Right Turn’s comments are typical,

This is clearly unlawful discrimination on the basis of marital status and family status, in violation of sections 21(1)(b) and s21(1)(l) of the Human Rights Act 1993. It may also constitute discrimination on the basis of religious belief in violation of s21(1)(c). Rangiora New Life School is a religious school, so it has an exemption for the latter – but not for the former. It can not legally exclude or punish students who have children or are in de facto relationships, any more than it can exclude or punish them for being divorced (or the children of people who are divorced).

Regardless of the merits (or lack thereof as Madeleine insists) of Idiot/Savant’s legal analysis here there is a moral point here worth addressing. Idiot/Savant seems to think that religious schools can discriminate on the grounds of religious belief but not on grounds of sexual behaviour. It is hard to see the sense in this because in many circumstances, and certainly in this case, a person’s religious beliefs include a set of beliefs about sexual morality. If we are to take this line of argument seriously a religious school can discriminate against people who believe that sex outside of marriage is wrong but they cannot discriminate against people who refuse to practice this belief. It is hard to see how such a view could be taken seriously; surely the whole point of these teachings is that they be followed.

Idiot/Savant continues,

But there’s another aspect to this: Rangiora New Life School is a state integrated school, and therefore effectively part of the state education system. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act therefore clearly applies. By discriminating against its students and denying them any involvement in the decisions about them, the school has violated the right to be free from discrimination and the right to justice. And that is something we should not be tolerating from any part of our government. Rangiora New Life School’s board must be told to obey the law, cease its discrimination, and reinstate the student it has excluded. And if they do not, they should be replaced.

Idiot/Savant here makes heavy weather over the fact that Rangiora New Life is an integrated school. While this is true, it is also a religious school which aims to inculculate a particular religious way of life. Integrated religious schools, with special characters allowing them to promote a particular religion, are extremely common. If Idiot/Savant’s, position is correct none of these schools should be allowed to require leaders in the school or students who attend the schools to uphold a certain religious ethos. This would of course make a mockery out of their mission to promote such a way of life.

Lurking behind this complaint is, I think, a mindset that schools that promote a particular religious ethos (or at least take the ethos seriously) should not get public funds; only secular schools should get such funds. In practice this means that a school that promotes a secular perspective antithetical to a particular religion will get state funds whereas a school that inculculates certain religious beliefs will not. It’s odd that people like Idiot/Savant who maintain the right to be free from discrimination on the part of the state would support such a policy that clearly discriminates against tax paying parents with religious views.

Wolterstorff notes a deeper problem,

there are parents within society for whom it is a matter of religious conviction that their children receive a religiously integrated education. … If those parents are forbidden by law to establish and patronize schools that teach in accord with their religious convictions, then the discrimination is embodied in law. If they not legally forbidden to establish and patronize such schools then the discrimination is embodied in economics. Were those parents to establish and patronize schools that teach in accord with their convictions, they would have to pay for those schools out of their own pockets, while still contributing to the general tax fund for the other schools, obviously there free exercise of religion is thereby infringed upon in a way in which that of others is not. They do not enjoy equal freedom to live their lives as they see fit.[5]

To insist that schools either forgo public funds or compromise the religious ethos they seek to inculculate is itself discrimination. Wolterstorff notes the only escape from this dilemma apart from privatising education entirely is to “fund equitably all schools that meet minimum educational requirements” and this means allowing schools to take public funding that will require strict standards of sexual morality from student leaders. Of course one could always admit that one does not actually support the right of all to be free from religious discrimination…

[1] Nicholas Wolterstorff Educating for Responsible Action (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co) 14-15.
[2] Ibid 51-55.
[3] Ibid 55.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Nicholas Wolterstorff “The Role of Religion in Political Issues” Religion in the Public Square

RECOMMENDED READING:
Religious Restraint and Public Policy

While it is not central to my point I cannot ignore the fact that in two places now (see the second comment on the Campbell Live link for one) I have seen the parents express anger at Campbell Live’s intrusion into their home without their consent. They had apparently categorically told the producers that they did not give permission for their property to be used for the interview but Campbell Live ignored their wishes and waited til they were not home to film the piece. Appalling.

B          The Dangers of Religion

One explanation as to why this asymmetry is applied to religious reasons is offered by Quinn; “Some people fear that religious argument is apt to be dangerously divisive.”[82] Audi concurs, “[religious reasons] are special in relation to liberal democracy even by contrast with [secular reasons] … that are not accessible to any normal adult.” [83] He gives five “salient points” to support his case, all based on the idea that religious reasons are dangerous to society. [84]

First Audi claims that religious reasons are often “directly or indirectly taken to represent an infallible authority”.[85] The second point is that religious people often “believe that anyone who does not identify with [the ultimate divine source] is forsaken, damned, or in some other way fundamentally deficient.”[86] Third, “religious reasons often dictate practices that are distinctively religious in content (such as prayer) or intent (such as preserving the fetus on the ground that it is a gift from God)”.[87] Fourth, with many religious leaders, especially leaders of cults, there is a risk that they are “cloaking their prejudices with absolute authority.”[88] Finally, Audi contends that religious people tend to be “highly and stubbornly passionate about the importance of everyone’s acting in accordance with religious reasons”.[89]

Again these features are not unique to religion. As McGrew argues, all these features can be equally present in secular people and movements;[90]

It is sadly amusing to read this list and to consider how well its negative aspects apply to secular people and movements. Communism, for example, is as fanatical as any conventional religion and demands group-think on an unrivaled scale. Contemporary feminism aspires to control worldview, language, and behavior. The New Atheists are exceedingly passionate about making people behave in accordance with their own beliefs (making sure children are taught Darwinism as unquestioned fact, for example), and Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Myers have an inflated sense of self-importance that would make many a Christian megachurch pastor look modest by comparison. Dawkins is infamous for having repeatedly and insistently called a religious upbringing “child abuse,” and while Dawkins has shied away from the obvious legal implications of this accusation, not everyone who thinks as he does is so cautious. Other secularists, self-styled “comprehensive liberals,” have expressly advocated the use of the power of the state to monitor and limit parents’ ability to transmit their religion to their children (see Hitchcock, 2004). As for the vicious condemnation of children who do not fully conform to their parents’ secular ideology, a good example of this phenomenon is the strange story of Rebecca Walker, daughter of feminist icon Alice Walker. And, on the other hand, there are plenty of religious people who do not display such negative characteristics. It simply does not appear to be true that we reduce fanaticism, self-important leadership, attempts at thought control, and the like in society by reducing the role of religion in public life.

McGrew suggests there are secular analogues of even Audi’s third reason, that religious reasons often dictate practices that are distinctively religious in content or intent;[91]

It would certainly be undesirable if people were being coerced to pray to any God, even the true God. But then, secular ideology can and sometimes does demand that we do homage to itself—in the form of changing our language to make it politically correct, for example, or treating two men or two women as “married” in all of our business activities. The problem with forcing people to pray to the true God is that the true God is not truly worshiped in that fashion. The problem with forcing people to pray to false gods and to pledge allegiance to false ideologies is that they are false. You will not avoid the problem of the coercion of conscience by limiting the role of religion in public life. You will only shift that problem so that the unreasonable coercion comes from some quarters rather than others.

Audi’s first point invites a parallel rejoinder. He defines infallible propositions as those that are “impossible that they be both endorsed or accepted by God and false”.[92] On this definition of infallibility every proposition is infallible. God, as Audi understands him, is omniscient. God only believes true propositions. It follows then that any proposition God accepts cannot be false; this is true whether it is a religious proposition or a secular one.

Audi’s main concern is that a person who believes an action is commanded by God believes that an omniscient, infallible being has endorsed that action. Appeals to purported divine commands are therefore problematic. However, some secular ethical theories face precisely the same problem.  One of the most influential secular theories, endorsed by ethicists as diverse as David Hume, Adam Smith, Henry Sidgwick, Richard Hare, Roderick Firth, John Stuart Mill, Tom Regan, Richard Brandt, Immanuel Kant and others, is the ideal observer theory. On this theory an action is wrong, if and only if, it would be proscribed by an ideal observer, by a person who is perfectly impartial and perfectly informed on all the relevant facts. A hypothetical ideal observer is no less infallible than religious believers take God to be. It is hard to see how invoking religious reasons is not acceptable but invoking the secular reasons is.[93]

C         Argument from Religious Wars
A more forcible danger of religion argument invokes the spectre of religious wars. Audi states “if religious considerations are not appropriately balanced with secular ones in matters of coercion, there is a special problem: a clash of Gods vying for social control. Such uncompromising absolutes easily lead to destruction and death”[94] Wolterstorff articulates the concern;[95]

One reason which liberals have offered ever since the emergence of liberalism in the seventeenth century is that it’s just too dangerous to let religious people debate political issues outside of their own confessional circles, and to act politically, on the basis of their religious views. The only way to forestall religious wars is to get people to stop invoking God and to stop invoking canonical scriptures when arguing and determining politics.

The adequacy of this argument can be contested on several grounds. First, Quinn, Greenwald and Wolterstorff note that while it was true of 17^th century England, “social peace did depend on getting citizens to stop invoking God, canonical scriptures, and religious authorities when discussing politics in public”,[96] it is not plausible that such a danger exists in 21^st century Western countries like New Zealand, Australia and the United States. Quinn notes, “current political debate in the United States exhibits failure to comply with Audi’s principles on a massive scale and yet shows no tendency to reignite the Wars of Religion of the early modern era.”[97]

Wolterstorff makes two other related points. He notes that “the slaughter, torture, and generalised brutality of our century has mainly been conducted in the name of one or another secular cause–nationalism of many sorts, communism, fascism, patriotisms of various kinds, economic hegemony.”[98] Second, he notes that “many of the social movements in the modern world that have moved societies in the direction of liberal democracy have been deeply and explicitly religious in their orientation”[99] He cites the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement and movements resisting communism, facism and apartheid as examples. The invocation of religious reasons risks war and civil strife when certain types of religious reasons are invoked in particular socio-political contexts. This is equally true of secular reasons; certain types of secular reasons can be dangerously incendiary in particular socio-political contexts. There seems no basis for an asymmetry between secular and religious reasons on these grounds.

Eberle and Cuneo add that 17^th century “confessional conflict … [was] typically rooted in egregious violations of the right to religious freedom, when, for example, people are jailed, tortured, or otherwise abused because of their religious commitments.”[100] Given that few, if any, who appeal to religious reasons advocate such violations or could plausibly bring them about, such appeals are unlikely to have tumultuous effects.

In terms of protecting freedom of religion from these kinds of abuses it is not obvious that secular reasons fare any better, “secularists have a long history of hostility to the right to religious freedom and, presumably, that hostility isn’t at all grounded in religious considerations”.[101] Moreover when[102]

religious believers have employed coercive power to violate the right to religious freedom, they themselves rarely have done so in a way that violates the DRR … when such rights have been violated, the justifications offered, even by religious believers, appeal to alleged requirements for social order, such as the need for uniformity of belief on basic normative issues. One theological apologist for religious repression, for example, writes this: ‘The king punishes heretics as enemies, as extremely wicked rebels, who endanger the peace of the kingdom, which cannot be maintained without the unity of the faith. That is why they are burnt in Spain’.

Similarly, Aquinas, in a Rawlsian vein, famously justified the suppression of heretics by appealing to the accepted political culture of his day which required that counterfeiters be executed.

Consequently, the religious wars of the 17^th century were caused, not by the appeal to religious reasons per se but rather by the violation of religious freedom; this violation has often been defended on secular grounds. It is unlikely that the DRR provides a bulwark against such abuses.

III        Conclusion

On examining the DRR it appears that there is no good reason for singling out religious reasons for a particular restraint and limiting discourse to secular reasons. The grounds offered for doing so, the golden rule, the epistemic accessibility of religious premises, the dangers of religion and the potential for religious wars all apply with equal force to secular beliefs. Hence, the restriction appears arbitrary. Moreover, as applied, the DRR is often incoherent and if applied consistently would render most substantive coercive laws unjustified. The current practice of equating secularism with neutrality is flawed.

As Carter eloquently puts it,[103]

What is needed is not a requirement that the religiously devout choose a form of dialogue that liberalism accepts, but that liberalism develop a politics that accepts whatever form of dialogue a member of the public offers. Epistemic diversity, like diversity of other kinds, should be cherished, not ignored, and certainly not abolished. What is needed, then, is a willingness to listen, not because the speaker has the right voice but because the speaker has the right to speak. Moreover, the willingness to listen must hold out the possibility that the speaker is saying something worth listening to; to do less is to trivialize the forces that shape the moral convictions of tens of millions of Americans.

This series was written as a supervised research paper in pursuit of my LLB.

[82] Phillip Quinn “Political Liberalisms and Their Exclusions of the Religious” (1995) 69:2 Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 35, 143.
[83] Robert Audi “Liberal Democracy and the Place of Religion in Politics” in Nicholas Wolterstorff & Robert Audi (eds) Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham Md, 1997) 1-66, 31.
[84] Ibid 31-32.
[85] Ibid 31.
[86] Ibid.
[87] Ibid.
[88] Ibid 31-32.
[89] Ibid 32.
[90] Lydia McGrew “The Irrational Faith of the Naked Public Square” (2008) 1 The Christendom Review (at 2 October 2009).
[91] Ibid.
[92] Audi, above n83, 63.
[93] I am grateful to Matthew Flannagan for the development of this point.
[94] Robert Audi Religious Commitment and Secular Reason (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2000) 103.
[95] Nicholas Wolterstorff “Why we should Reject what Liberalism tells us About Speaking and Acting in Public for Religious Reasons” in Paul Weithman (ed) Religion and Contemporary Liberalism (University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame IN, 1997) 167.
[96] Nicholas Wolterstorff “The Role of Religion in Decision and Discussion of Political Issues” in Nicholas Wolterstorff & Robert Audi (eds) Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham Md, 1997) 67-120, 79.
[97] Quinn, above n82, 39.
[98] Wolterstorff, above n96, 80.
[99] Christopher J. Eberle and Terence Cuneo “Religion and Political Theory” (2008) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (at 9 August 2009).
[100] Ibid.
[101] Ibid.
[102] Ibid.
[103] Stephen Carter The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialise Religious Devotion (Basic Books, New York, 1993) 230.

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Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part III
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part IV
Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part V