James F. McGrath is still trying to explain what modern sophisticated religion is all about, and why amateur atheists, like me, just don't get it.His latest attempt is on his blog at Does Being Exist?. The most revealing paragraph is the last one ...
So if you are looking for evidence that ancient deities and angels exist, with or without wings, residing on Mt. Olympus or just beyond the moon, I don't believe that such entities exist. They were ancient explanations for what we today recognize as natural phenomena. But if you are asking about language that can give symbolic expression to the sense of awe many people feel about the "miracle" that anything exists at all, much less that we exist and can ponder the nature of our existence and wonder about these mysteries, then theology has a lot to offer. Not logical arguments for the existence of invisible persons, but metaphors that allow us to give voice to our limited and inadequate perception of life's inexpressable mystery, then theology has a lot to offer. That doesn't mean that amateurs can't do theology, or write poetry, or make music, or even make scientific discoveries. But in every field, there is a body of knowledge and wisdom that has accumulated that allows one to not repeat all the mistakes and positive groundwork done in the past and build on what has gone before, rather than reinventing the wheel. If one wishes to discuss theology at that sort of level of academic sophistication, it involves significant reading and research to inform oneself, and not simply a handful of conversations with fundamentalists.Translation: You can't say that the Emperor has no clothes because you haven't invested years of study at the best institutes of fashion design in Paris and Milan. There are hundreds of smart people who have written sophisticated, metaphorical books on the Emperor's clothes. Don't talk to me until you've read all of them and can quote mystical passages and scholarly names as easily as I do.
What McGrath is illustrating here is referred to as The Courtier's Reply [The Emperor's New Clothes and the Courtier's Reply]. The term refers to an elaborate justification of a questionable viewpoint. Instead of addressing whether of not the Emperor is clothed, the courtier defends the "sophisticated" rationalization that the sycophants have constructed to preserve the delusion, and avoid admitting that they can't see the clothes either.
McGrath thinks that theology can be justified because it addresses "life's inexpressable mystery." This is reason enough to reject atheism even though he denies the existence of any of the classical gods. Furthermore, this is reason enough to call himself a Christian.
I'd like to discuss why he is impressed by some "inexpressible mystery" and why he thinks it's a "miracle" that anything exists at all. Why does he feel that this is enough to cause him to posit something beyond the natural world? Why are these feelings so powerful that he rejects the label of atheist and adopts theology as a way of knowing? Those are the key points.
But I'm not allowed to discuss those points, according to McGrath. I can't enter into a debate with him until I've read all of the sophisticated theologians who agree with him. I haven't done my homework. Until then, I'm just an amateur who doesn't understand the arguments against atheism and in favor of modern mysticism/theology.
That's not very helpful. It's a way of protecting one's core beliefs from close scrutiny by skeptics.
There's nothing new about McGrath's argument. It's just a version of the Argument from Personal Experience. Those arguments have been dealt with by atheists. There's nothing sophisticated about them.
Perhaps McGrath has been fooled into thinking that the argument from personal experience is valid because there are many scholars who find it convincing? If so, this is evidence of another logical fallacy called Argumentum ad nauseam.
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