On the Significance of the Revival of Christian Philosophy

One way to understand the revival, even increasing flourishing, of a robust Christian philosophy -- one that is unabashedly, metaphysically realist about many of the traditional claims of revelation -- is that it can be taken to expose the secret truth of the Enlightenment: the traditional anti-theological arguments against revealed religion and its miracles are weaker than commonly thought.

Before I get to develop that thought, I need to address one prejudice. It is common to see the (non-trivial) progress of science as vindicating the (radical) Enlightenment's anti-revelation position. This relies on a stark opposition between science and revealed religion. While undoubtedly the epistemic status of some revealed religions and some of their doctrines have been undermined by scientific developments (especially those that hitched their wagons on now outdated scientific claims about, say, species), not all revealed religions are in the same boat. (I leave it to others to explore the exact details.) More important, some traditional philosophical doctrines that were kind of taken for granted by the party of the Enlightenment were undermined in the progress of science. Here's one example: the eternity of the world was, at least since Aristotle, a common commitment among those that doubted revealed religion with its embrace of a doctrine of creation. While the Bing Bang can be made compatible with the eternity of he world, the creationist-line stopped being silly scientifically. In fact, the rigorous modern debate over fine-tuning is made possible by science, but it has a theological character.

Analytic Christian Philosophy (ACP) was not supposed to happen if the progressive (soft-teleological), self-understanding of Enlightenment thought and its self-styled followers within early analytic philosophy were right (I am not canvassing quotes, but one can find such thoughts expressed in the Vienna Circle and Russell). Upon reflection this confidence is puzzling because in so far as analytical philosophical has any common commitments at all, the movement was not developed along doctrinal lines (and many of its early founders rejected doctrinal commitments). So, the progressive self-understanding bags, as it were, earlier (say, Pre-Fregean or Pre-Boolean) thought (e.g., Spinoza, Hume, Feuerbach, Nietzsche, etc.),  while simultaneously insisting its own discontinuity from most of it.

While undoubtedly, due to increased specialization, some commitments of ACP have not received full scrutiny by disinterested expert-outsiders, there is no evidence that ACP is conducted in massive bad faith.* Rather, ACP's ongoing ability to attract well-trained and talented young philosophers attests to the intellectual promise of the approach undoubtedly  inspired by a whole number of more senior, fierce intellects. No widely known arguments decisively refute the ACP enterprise as such. (The previous sentence is compatible with thinking that claims inspired by revelation are less secure epistemically than alternative commitments.) The only program that could provide such an argument -- one committed to the Principle of Sufficient Reason -- was itself taken to be a casualty of Enlightenment thought.

The absence of such decisive refutations reminds us that once Fideism was properly understood, the Enlightenment victory over revelation was, at bottom, a change of heart (and perhaps revulsion at the way politically powerful religions promoted cruelty and hypocrisy) accompanied by effective satire and ridicule now associated with names like Bayle, Voltaire, Diderot, and Hume (and their nineteenth century, more confident heirs). 

 

 

 

*This is not to deny the reality that the best opposing arguments are not always systematically sought out by folk doing ACP (that's compatible with a self-selection bias in the niche). Genuine stress-testing of one's own commitments are miraculously rare events within ACP as it is in other areas of analytical philosophy.

Comments

[Eric Winsberg]

You lost me on most of this.

1)You say that it is prejudice that "the (non-trivial) progress of science as vindicat[ed] the (radical) Enlightenment's anti-revelation position"

I don't think this is prejudice at all, and I don't see the argument that it is at all. A)revealed religions are all full of empirically testable claims that have been shot down by science. B)They almost all present a picture of an omniscient creator who reveals truths to us. But science has repeatedly revealed that the world is full of strange and wonderous phenomena that the actual authors of these revelations never dreamed of. Why would an omniscient creator have done such a lousy job of informing us about the underlying structure of the world.

2)You say that its "more important," that "some traditional philosophical doctrines that were kind of taken for granted by the party of the Enlightenment were undermined in the progress of science" Why is this "more important"? or even surprising? Good enlightenment figures were empiricist, and surely they countenanced the possibility that they would get some things like this wrong. Unless science were to undermine the commitments that they had that were at the foundation of their critique of revealed religion, then this all seems incidental and not "more important." So some enlightenment figures made fun of Christians for thinking the world was eternal. Suppose science shows that it isn't? (I would say the prevailing scientific view right now, btw, is that it is). Why does this undermine the critique if, as I am suggesting, the reaction against non-eternity was just a _symptom_ of the critique, and not at its foundation. What would be "more important" would be if science showed that enlightenment figures used doctrines in their critique of the epistemic power of revelation that were now discredited by science. But I cant imagine there are examples of this.

3) you say "Analytic Christian Philosophy (ACP) was not supposed to happen if the progressive (soft-teleological), self-understanding of Enlightenment thought and its self-styled followers within early analytic philosophy were right" this puzzled me the most.

What part of the self-understanding of the Enlightenment made predictions about the sociology of a 21st century sub-discipline? Is the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and fascism not supposed to have happened? what is it about "ACP" in particular, that makes it a predictive failure for enlightenment figures?

Unless perhaps you mean something more than a _predictive_ failure. But then what _do_ you mean, and how do you propose to defend it?

[Schliesser, Eric]

Eric, Maybe you should engage with ACP directly.
1) You are just restating what I already said ("he epistemic status of some revealed religions and some of their doctrines have been undermined by scientific developments (especially those that hitched their wagons on now outdated scientific claims"). I would just add that if you actually knew your opponents's views (rather than recycle Enlightenment Memes), you would be aware that some revelations prophecy that empirical inquiry will reveal all kinds of wondrously unimaginable things. (I have even blogged about one such argument once at NewAPPS.)
2) The argument for eternity of the world hardly qualifies as an empiricist argument; nor is the critique of religion exclusively an empiricist affair (Hobbes, Spinoza, etc.)! I don't think the science of the Enlightenment is exclusively empiricist (the rational mechanics of Euler, D'Alembert, Laplace, etc. hardly counts as empiricist--in fact, lots of Leibnizian and, to lesser degree, Spinozist metaphysical premises in their approach to physics).
3) your puzzlement ought to motivate you to explore how analytical philosophy turned out to be a rather hospitable place for ACP.

[F.A. Muller]

Concerning (3): everything can be analysed, including christian nonsense: if a large enough group of people dive into one particular topic, produces papers in their own (Zygon), then you have a 'subfield' in philosophy.
Why now? Might the fourse horsemen have something to do with that?

[Schliesser, Eric]

If ACP were restricted to merely a niche journal, then I would not have written this post.