The Evidence for God

Generic Faith

by John Taylor; 2008 Jan 28, 10 Sultan, 164 BE

Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence; The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World, Prima Publ., Rocklin, CA, 1997

The struggle between theists and anti-theists (I am dropping the terms "atheist" and "agnostic" for now, since neither credo is necessarily against God or religion) resembles one of those knife duels where two contestants have their wrists tied together with a short cord. They are in a bitter, life-or-death struggle, and the tie holding them together, the link that defines all their stratagems, is exclusivism. For the anti-theist, exclusivism permits the oldest ploy in the world, the "divide and conquer" approach; for the theist, exclusivism acts like a mighty wall to protect their beliefs from incursions by rival beliefs about God. If an inclusivist believer, such as a Baha'i, a Gandian Hindu, or a Kuhnian Christian, enters the scene, both knife fighters immediately turn and unite in discounting the validity of their claim to religiosity.

That said, I want to review Patrick Glynn's truly wonderful book, "God: the Evidence" today. As an inclusivist believer, I embrace this book wholeheartedly. Having read it, I feel that I am a better Baha'i than I was before I came upon it. I do not think a better positive argument for theistic belief could be put together by a Christian. If somebody has written such a book, I would like to know who it is. Unlike the other books I am reading, this one is positive, it sets up the positive grounds that an atheist has for believing in God. It does not attempt to defend religion, to uphold the Baha'i principle the Master called "Religion is a Mighty Bulwark." That job is undertaken by another book, which I am not finished reading yet, called "Is Religion Dangerous?" by Keith Ward. I shall review that one presently.

 It should not be surprising that both of our knife duelers, the fundamentalists and the crusading atheists, have agreed not to disagree long enough to condemn "God, the Evidence." They forget their own duel and come at it with knives flailing. As one atheist reviewer repeated over and over in his screed against "God: the Evidence," "There is no generic religion," "There is no generic religion." If he gives up his hold on that, religion would not be the force for evil that he tenaciously holds it to be; it might even be susceptible to change and improvement. The one Christian reviewer that I uncovered on the Web said that he was pleased that the atheist Glynn had found faith but that he prays that Glynn will come to realize that Jesus is the One and Only Lord, and On and On.

 It seems that the arbiters at Wikipedia agree with the knife fighters. While there are extensive articles on all of the opponents of theism, Patrick Glynn is not famous enough to merit a mention.

 The first chapter tells Glynn's own spiritual journey from atheist to theist, a trip that took decades to traverse. At the same time he tells of the rise to ascendancy and gradual fall of atheistic belief systems in several scientific disciplines, and how their failures in the realm of practical experience persuaded him that there must be more to belief in God than he had imagined in his youth. He estimates that sometime in the mid-Sixties atheism reached its high point; this was marked by the week when in 1966 Time Magazine plastered over its cover, "Is God Dead?" After that, it was gradually tried and found wanting.

 To mention only psychology, nineteen out of twenty psychiatrists at the time were atheists. Then, over the next couple of decades the scientific evidence began piling up that belief in God, far from being a symptom of mental illness, is in fact a fundamental component of mental health. Now Freudianism is all but discredited among shrinks. Family therapy witnessed an even swifter decline. In the early Seventies a book called "Open Marriage" was a bestseller, but five years later the test subjects acknowledged that consensual adultery had been a mistake, and the author essentially renounced what she had propounded.

 The next chapter, called "A not-so-random universe," talks about the rise of the anthropic principle in physics. In the early Seventies it was found that the constants on which the universe are constructed are very finely tuned; a tad out in either direction and there would be no life, the universe or anything. Atheists counter that this assumes that there is an array of little dials that God twiddles in order that we will come into existence. Be that as it may, as I was reading this I had a feeling that this would be unpersuasive to atheists. It was not even convincing to me, and I am a believer. It is too much of a stretch to use physical evidence to prove spiritual entities, much less God Himself.

 The next two chapters deal with physical and mental health, and here Glynn is on much firmer ground. He cites large numbers of broad-based statistical studies of the entire population. Unlike the anti-theist books I am reading, which rely very little on statistics, an apologist for theism can happily roll around in virtually all of the findings of social science. Anti-theists must, generally speaking, sit back and take potshots at the hotheads, the idiots and suicide bombers among people of faith in order to make their points.

 Truly, God seems to have engraved His image on us, for if we believe in Him the evidence is overwhelming that we are much healthier and happier than if we do not. Data continues to mount that we are less prone to addiction, suicide, divorce and other vices if God is actively involved in our lives, and especially if we express that actively in some kind of religious commitment. Perhaps surprisingly, it was even found that married women believers enjoy sex more than their sisters outside faith and the bonds of holy matrimony. This goes against what secular hedonists had held, that we are healthier if we put pleasure first and express natural desires without moral restraint.

 An anti-theist reviewer of this book, Michael Martin, although unconvinced himself, is forced to concede that moral standards, relatively speaking, sort of, maybe are needed for some people, some of the time,

 "Another dubious aspect of Glynn's argument is his thesis that immoral living -- by which he seems to mean sexual promiscuity in particular and rampant hedonism in general -- is conducive to unhappiness and psychological ill heath. As I have argued elsewhere, absolute moral standards are compatible with atheism. Here let me just say that Glynn wrongly assumes that atheists would have a problem embracing the thesis that uncontrolled hedonism leads to unhappiness and psychological ill health." <http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/glynn.html>

 It is one thing for an anti-theist to concede that some breeds of atheism are "compatible" with standards, and quite another to center your life upon the Absolute, to put moral standards first, before your desires, and to love God in your heart of hearts. It is difficult enough for ardent, conscious believers to accomplish this. Making reluctant concessions to what is essentially foreign to your deepest convictions is just not going to cut it. We are talking about a positive contribution of religion to social and personal stability, and if you are going to take it away you are going to have to show that you have something more effective to take its place. Otherwise you are taking a dangerous leap of faith, or in this case, of scientistic anti-faith.

 I should devote entire essays to each of the last two chapters of "God: The Evidence." These chapters, "Intimations of Immortality" and "Reason and Spirit," are required reading for anybody bold enough to enter into the arena where this knife battle is taking place. If you are in need of armor that a sharp weapon cannot penetrate, look no further.

 Reading "Intimations of Immortality" was for me a confirmation, a nostalgic, invigorating ... a wholly transforming experience. Words cannot express what it did for me. It changed me, confirmed me in faith, especially after reading so much dreary, hackneyed, hateful material against the God that I am absolutely in love with. When you are in love it is painful to see the name of your beloved dragged through the mud. You know that it is just a name and that He is untouchable, and you know that they know not what they do and all that, but the tears flow from your eyes unbidden and unstoppable. This chapter cleaned up His name for me, no, it purified it to a state of pristine clarity that it had not been in for decades, if ever.

 "Intimations of Immortality" is about near death experiences. Something like one in five patients who have a close brush with death report either an out-of-body experience or the full scale trip through a tunnel into the light. Many meet a holy figure, God, Krishna, Jesus, an angel or a relative (depending on their beliefs), and this Being reviews the moral quality of their entire life with them.

 One of these eyewitnesses -- and this is eyewitness testimony, one of the most direct and convincing forms of evidence for the historiographer -- reported something that still sticks in my mind: "Nothing is lost, not a single thought." Everything that passes through the brain is weighed in the balance and counts for something. That is what hit me so hard about this. There is no such thing as a discrete, private world under the aspect of eternity. Ever since I read that, I have been getting my act together, walking the talk, inside and out. Not a thought, not a thought has been out of line, or ever will be, if God confirms my faith.

 But along with the honey, a little vinegar must come. This scientific confirmation of the afterlife has not been met with enthusiasm among theists, committed as they are to exclusivism. An evangelical does not meet with enthusiasm the news that Jesus does not meet with everybody who dies to tell them how right their church really was, and point out to them the path to hell.

 I wish that I could say that Baha'is are wholly different, but such has not been the case in my experience. As a former atheist, I have always found this evidence for God to be utterly convincing, and I remember after I became a Baha'i I devoured avidly "Life after Life" and its successors. I remember being in Ottawa, where there were scads of young believers, and sharing my enthusiasm for the latest Life after Life book. We were at a restaurant and we went around the table. Of about eight youths, all of them agreed that this did not prove anything to them. They doubted that it means a thing.

 Like the anti-theist Michael Martin, they marked it down to some kind of inexplicable ESP. Man oh man, if the sworn testimony of one in five about the afterlife is not enough for you, well, all I can say is, go out and wait for Jesus to descend from the clouds, because nothing short of that is going to convince you. Here is how Martin, enemy of God, handles the argument in this chapter:

"Glynn does leap, but to which supernatural account he jumps is not altogether clear. Glynn seems to think that heterogeneous NDEs (near death experiences) can somehow be harmonized to support a type of generic religious belief and he speaks glibly of a core moral vision common to all major religions. But if there is one thing that the comparative study of religion teaches us, it is how different the moral -- not to mention the metaphysical -- visions of reality are in different religions. There is no generic religion. NDE cannot support Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism at the same time for in important respects these religions are inconsistent with one another. Independent of Glynn's misplaced hankerings for a generic religion, one thing is clear: he wants us to think that NDE supports belief in an afterlife."

I love this rationalization. He is absolutely forced to flee into the arms of his opponent on the other end of the cord that binds them, the exclusivist theist. If it were a video of a knife fight, the two of them would be in one of those Wild World of Sports highlights, a spectacular head over heels, flying-through-the-air crash right onto the point of both of their knives. Hit the rewind button -- he uses the word "generic" no fewer than three times. Count them, three times.

All I can say to Martin is, try attending a World Religion Day celebration. Here the common values of all faiths are paraded before you like holy strippers, stripping down to what an eyewitness would have to admit has to be something pretty close to the essentials of theistic belief. All we have to do is act upon our similarities by forming a parliament of religions. Oh, and do not worry, there is no reason that atheists and agnostics should not be invited too, though I doubt if the anti-theists among them will want to turn up at what would amount to their funeral.

I would like to get this review over and done with, but the final chapter, "Reason and Faith," seems so important that it stands on its own and only a full essay can do it justice. So that for next time, or whenever.