I "Get" This Part

 
James F. McGrath is one of those theologians who criticize Richard Dawkins and the new atheists. According to McGrath, those atheists simply don't get it when it comes to modern sophisticated theology. The sophisticated theologians say that Dawkins and his fellow atheists are attacking a strawman version of religion.

Alister McGrath's¹ defense of religion falls into this category [Alister McGrath's Defense of Religion]. Like most theologians who employ the "sophisticated religion", defense their actual attempts end up sounding very much like the Courtier's Reply.

Over the past few weeks, James McGrath has attempted to educate atheists about modern theology. In response to many questions he has tried very hard to explain "sophisticated religion" and why the new atheists just don't get it. He hasn't been all that successful, in my opinion. I just don't see why his explanation of god is any different than the ones that have already been addressed by atheists over the past several hundred years. It looks a lot to me like the same-old, same-old, argument from personal experience.

That's exactly what it is. Yesterday McGrath posted an honest and forthright description of his views. A view that he has been very reluctant to describe in any other recent posting or in any of the comments that he has posted. Here's what he wrote on his blog in an article that was addressed to his followers [Spirits in a Material World: A Multi-Blog Conversation].

Would if be going too far to say that those who have had mystical experiences are in very much the position of sighted people trying to explain color to the blind, or music lovers trying to explain why a piece moves them so much to someone who is tone deaf? In this conversation, however, it is not clear that the other side of the conversation is "disabled". They simply have no interest in understanding the experience or appreciating the music. And there is no way I can introduce someone to the music or why it moves me just by talking in abstract terms about something that is deeply experiential.

On the other hand, part of the issue is that I have no interest in defending any particular doctrines about God, and so my "views" seem hard to pin down, because I hold them so loosely. I realized long ago that the life-changing experience I had when I cried out to God in surrender and felt a sense of peace wash over me does not prove that a tomb was empty 2,000 or so years ago, or that God is 3-in-one, or any other such claims. What seems to confuse some people is that I still can find Trinitarian language helpful and inspiring and meaningful, not as a statement about what God is "really like" (as though I had a means to study that scientifically or objectively), but as an image of how this God that we speak of only in inadequate symbols and metaphors can be eternal love (since love requires more than one person).

Thank-you James for being so honest. Your sophisticated explanation of God is just the old argument from personal experience dressed up so that it conflicts as little as possible with modern science and rationalism.

Atheists have addressed the argument from personal experience. Dawkins covers it in his book. I wish his opponents would pretending that they have a "sophisticated" explanation of God that atheists have not refuted.

James, I "get" your explanation. I understand how someone can feel "a sense of peace" when you give up the struggle to be rational and "cry out to God in surrender." I can understand why you draw a parallel between your mystical experience and being able to see clearly. I know why you think atheists are like a blind person.

Here's a question for you. People who believe in aliens and UFO's think the same way. They honestly believe that they have been granted special insight. They see things that the rest of us can't see. They will use the same analogies and metaphors that you use. Do you take that as evidence that UFO's and aliens actually exist?

If the answer is "no", then why do you think Richard Dawkins should pay attention to your personal mystical experience if it conflicts with everything he knows about the natural world? You have every right to interpret your mystical experience however you want. But you go beyond that, don't you? You claim that the case for atheism is weak because we cannot explain your sophisticated personal experience. As soon as you make that claim you are stepping outside of your own personal experience and asking others to validate it from the outside. When you do that, you are obliged to present evidence that your personal experience reflects reality and not an illusion. What is the evidence that an objective outsider like me should consider?

---

1. No relation to James McGrath.