The Myth of Religious Neutrality, Revised Edition

An Essay on the Hidden Role of Religious Belief in Theories

Roy A. Clouser

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9780268077013
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Ethics & Religion

Written for undergraduates, the educated layperson, and scholars in fields other than philosophy, The Myth of Religious Neutrality offers a radical reinterpretation of the general relations between religion, science, and philosophy. This new edition has been completely revised and updated by the author.

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

When we consider what religion is for mankind and what science is, it is no exaggeration to say that the future course of history depends upon the decision of this generation as to the relations between them.

Alfred North Whitehead

To what extent does religious belief make a difference to the ways people understand and conduct their lives?

The popular answer is that it all depends on how religious a person is. It makes virtually no difference at all for an atheist, while a fanatic thinks and cares about little else. The popular answer then sees the majority of people as falling between these two extremes, and it takes religion to deal mostly with morality and a person’s eternal destiny rather than with the bulk of the affairs of life. Thus most of the affairs of day-to-day life are seen as neutral with respect to religious belief.

As a result of investigating religious belief and its influences for almost fifty years, I have become convinced that these popular opinions are completely mistaken. Instead, I find that religious belief is the most powerful and influential belief in the world. I further find that religious belief has the single most decisive influence on everyone’s understanding of the major issues of life ranging across the entire spectrum of human experience. Moreover, I find it exercises such influence upon all people independently of their conscious acceptance or rejection of the religious traditions with which they are acquainted.

The enormous influence of religious beliefs remains, however, largely hidden from casual view. Its relation to the rest of life is like that of the great geological plates of the earth’s surface to its continents and oceans. The movement of these plates is not apparent to an eyeball inspection of any particular landscape and can only be detected with great difficulty. Nevertheless, so vast are these plates, so stupendous their power, that their visible effects—mountain ranges, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions—are but tiny surface blemishes compared with the force of the mighty plates themselves. Similarly, the great historic traditions of religious teaching, and the institutions devoted to their preservation, are merely the surface effects of religious belief, which is a vaster and more pervasive force than all of them put together.

Among the reasons this influence is so often missed is that people are prone to two alluring mistakes about religious belief. One is to suppose that all the major religious traditions are basically like the one they’re best acquainted with. The other is to suppose that the likeness between religious traditions must lie in their most obvious and outstanding features. These two mistakes serve to keep hidden from view the true nature of religious belief, and thus most of its influence.

Our first task, then, will be to define the nature of religious belief by seeking common features among the central beliefs of the world’s religious traditions. The definition we arrive at will strike many people as surprising because it will show a number of beliefs to be religious that do not result in worship. For those under the spell of the two mistakes just mentioned, the definition will therefore seem strange and suspicious. In fact, however, one of its greatest contributions lies precisely in showing us why not all religious beliefs have rituals or ethical codes connected with them. Though surprising, this discovery is of enormous benefit as a first step toward exposing the vast array of unsuspected connections between the issues usually supposed to be religiously neutral and the religious beliefs which actually guide their interpretation.

In speaking of religious belief as influential over the entire range of human experience, I do not mean to suggest that we speak our native tongue or add a column of figures differently depending on our religion. Speaking and counting usually take place at a level of experience where our activity in, and acquaintance with, the world around us is remarkably the same for all people. But there is a deeper level of understanding which humans have always sought, a level at which the nature of our world and ourselves is interpreted and explained. In our culture, that level has long been sought through theories. It is by the theories of philosophy and the sciences that we probe the deeper nature of, and construct explanations of, all that we experience.

The central claim of this book is that no such theory can fail to be regulated and guided by some religious belief or other.

To many readers this claim will seem not merely surprising but outrageous. Scientific theories, especially, are supposed to be the most neutral and unbiased explanations of all. My claim may therefore tempt some readers to think that I cannot possibly mean it. So let me assure you right away that I am not overstating it now only to water it down later. I will not, for example, argue that all theories have unprovable assumptions, call these assumptions “faith,” and then conclude that religious belief in that sense influences theories. That would be a huge waste of time. Everyone in philosophy and the sciences knows that theories have unprovable assumptions, but a belief is not religious just because it is unprovable.

Nor will I argue that theory making is influenced by the moral beliefs of theorists, and then try to connect religion with morality. There are notable instances of moral influences on theorizing, and some are cases in which the morality was directly derived from a religious tradition. But such influence is surely not true of all theories and is not the sort of thing intended by my claim. Neither will I merely be pointing to the fact that scientists have at times borrowed ideas from religion or theology which they transformed and employed in theories. That falls far short of the sort of regulation I will argue for, as it is neither pervasive nor regulatory. Finally, the position that will be defended is not just another version of the oft-suggested view that philosophy and science are limited in what they can explain, and so leave gaps in our understanding that religious beliefs can fill. I am not merely claiming that theories “leave room for faith,” as Kant put it. Rather, I will contend that one or another religious belief always functions as a regulative presupposition to any abstract theory, and that this is unavoidable not merely owing to the historical/social presence of such beliefs in our culture but because it arises out of the very process of theory making itself.

To be more precise, I will contend that one or another religious belief controls theory making in such a way that the interpretation of the contents of a theory differs depending on the contents of the religious belief it presupposes. This should not be understood to mean that religious beliefs somehow inspire thinkers to invent just the hypotheses they invent, but rather that the nature of whatever a theory proposes is conceived of differently depending on the religious belief it presupposes. It should be clear, then, that this is not the claim that the proposals of theories are all deduced from religious convictions (though that has happened at times). Rather, I mean that some religious belief or other delimits an acceptable range of interpretations of the nature of whatever a hypothesis proposes. It is in this sense that I find the influence of religious belief to be utterly pervasive. And it is in this sense that virtually all the major disagreements between rival theories in the sciences and in philosophy can ultimately be traced back to the differences between the religious beliefs that guide them.

This means that theories about math and physics, sociology and economics, art and ethics, politics and law can never be religiously neutral. They are one and all regulated by some religious belief. It is in this way that the effects of religious beliefs extend far beyond providing the hope for life after death or the influencing of moral values and judgments. By controlling theory making, they produce important differences in the interpretation of issues that range over the whole of life.

This position is bound to provoke stiff resistance from many quarters, and doubtless one of the strongest objections will be directed against my claim that the influence of religious belief extends to everyone. Do I really mean to suggest that everyone has a religious belief, despite the fact that many people say that they neither have nor want one? On this point, too, I once again disagree with the prevailing popular opinion. Popular opinion says that a person surely knows whether he or she has a religious belief, and that anyone who claims to reject them all couldn’t be wrong about it. Besides, popular opinion says, isn’t it just obvious that lots of people are totally nonreligious?

These popular views appear plausible, in my opinion, because of the two mistakes cited earlier. If religious belief must involve worship and creedal adherence, then certainly there are many people without it. However, once the definition of religious belief is made clear, and its involvement in theories is exposed, it becomes quite plausible that people may hold such a belief without even being conscious of it.

All the same, I will not attempt to prove that all people are innately religious. The project here is more modest, but still significant. What will be demonstrated is that no abstract explanatory theory can fail to include or presuppose a religious belief. In that case, we may say that the only people who could possibly avoid all religious belief are those who believe no theory whatever!

Let me briefly outline how I propose to defend such a seemingly hopeless cause.

After defining religious belief, I will take a hard look at what goes on in theory making, distinguish some major types of theories, and analyze the activity of abstraction that is unavoidable in the construction of any theory whatever. It is the act of abstraction and its limits that will later be shown to be what make the involvement of religious belief in theories unavoidable. We will then examine the most popular ideas of about how religious belief and theories are supposed to relate, and discover why they are deficient compared with the more extensive influence we’ll discover. I will then clarify more precisely how religious belief exercises its influence in theories by offering a casebook of sample theories to illustrate it. The sample theories will be some of the most famous and important ever to be proposed in math, physics, and psychology. They will not only show how the influence of religious belief works, but also make clear why the competing theories in these sciences are ultimately due to the differences between the religious beliefs presupposed by each. The arguments as to why such influence is unavoidable follow the casebook chapters in chapter 10.

The discovery of this relation between religious belief and theory making is not merely a matter of intellectual curiosity, but is of enormous importance for the whole of life. For if theories differ according to the religious beliefs controlling them, then those of us who believe in God should have an interpretation of all theories we make or adopt which is distinct from interpretations of them that presuppose some other divinity. It is for this reason the book concludes with a blueprint for a program of constructing new theories or reinterpreting existing theories so as to bring them under the control of belief in God. This includes a brief sketch of a God-controlled theory of reality. The results of that theory are then explicated by applying them to a theory of society and to a political theory which are not only generally theistic, but specifically Christian. That is, they will be guided not only by belief in God but also by views of human nature, social relationships, and institutions that are found in the New Testament.

I want to make it clear, therefore, that the primary intent of this book is not to convert readers to belief in God, or to refute atheism, agnosticism, secular humanism, or any other “ism.” Insofar as such isms are mentioned at all, the references to them are always secondary to my main purpose. This book is addressed to those who believe in God. I write here as a Christian seeking to persuade my brothers and sisters in the religious family of those who serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that our belief in a transcendent Creator mandates a distinct perspective for the interpretation of every aspect of life. And this distinct perspective extends to the construction and interpretation of philosophical, scientific, and all other theories because there is no area or issue of life which is neutral with respect to belief in God. In addition, I write to fellow Christians to show how the basically theistic interpretation of theories can be combined with Christian teachings to develop specifically Christian theories.

I realize this is not a position that has ever been held by the majority of Christians or other theists, despite the fact that so many Bible writers repeatedly teach that all knowledge and truth is impacted by having the right God. The failure to take this teaching seriously has resulted in a long history of Christians and other theistic thinkers unwittingly accepting theories that are actually incompatible with belief in God. Moreover, the absence of this insight into just how belief in God impacts theories is responsible for much of the present confusion over the relation between science and biblical religion. The position defended here will make clear why it is not true that science and religion are by nature opposed to one another. But at the same time it will show why holding that belief in God impacts all theories does not require that they are all to be derived from, or confirmed by, appeal to scripture or theology as fundamentalists attempt to do. It will thus present an alternative to all the currently prevailing views of the general relation of religious belief to theories.

The discussion of these issues begins at an introductory level. It assumes the reader to have no previous knowledge of philosophy, only a smattering of high school science, and to be unsophisticated about religion. As the book progresses, however, each succeeding chapter does assume what has been explained in previous chapters, so that it will not be possible to understand the position defended in the later chapters if the earlier chapters are skipped. Even at its most advanced level, however, the more technical points of argument have been placed in the notes so as to keep the text accessible to nonprofessionals.

Keeping the text at such a level of discussion has drawbacks, of course. Many points that could be raised need to be left out, and others that are included need more extensive analysis and argument than can be given at this level. Although this is frustrating, it does allow the position as a whole to be conveyed in one book, and the book to be accessible to readers with little or no philosophical background. My hope is that the treatment afforded the major points will be detailed enough to indicate the lines along which they could and would be further defended were the discussion more extensive.

Despite the limitations of starting at an introductory level, I pray this work will be able to sensitize even the most sophisticated readers to the great influence of religious belief, to encourage all who believe in God to work together to promote this position, and to encourage Christians to develop theories that are regulated by the teachings of the New Testament.

PART I

RELIGION

Chapter 2

WHAT IS RELIGION?

2.1 The Problem

Defining “religion” is notoriously difficult. The word is used in a large number of ways: it is applied to rituals, organizations, beliefs, doctrines, and feelings as well as to large-scale traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Moreover, the very subject of religious belief is often emotionally charged. This sensitivity is natural since religion concerns people at the deepest level of their convictions and values.

To help minimize these difficulties, let us keep two thoughts firmly in mind as we proceed. The first is that we are not now trying to establish which religion is true or false, right or wrong. We are trying to arrive at an understanding of what religion—any religion—is. In answer to this question I will be proposing and defending what is often called a “real” definition, that is, a definition that is more precise or scientific than those employed in common speech. The second thing to remember is that the definition I will offer focuses on one particular use of the term “religion,” the sense in which it qualifies belief. Our search for a definition of religion, then, will be a search for what distinguishes a religious belief from a belief which is not religious. This is because I take belief to be the key issue, since it is religious beliefs which prompt and guide the persons, practices, rites, rituals, and traditions we commonly call “religious.”

What, then, is a religious belief? Consider the question this way. We all have literally thousands of beliefs about thousands of things. At this moment, for example, I believe myself to be the blood relative of certain other people; I believe 1 + 1 = 2; I believe next Friday is payday, that there was an ice age about 20,000 years ago, and that there was a civil war in England in the 1640s. While most people would probably agree that none of these beliefs is religious, the ancient Pythagoreans regarded 1 + 1 = 2 as a religious belief! So we need to know not only what makes one belief religious and another not, but how it can be that the same belief can be religious to one person and not to another.

As we proceed, we must also keep in mind what any definition must do if it is to avoid being arbitrary. A non-arbitrary definition must state the set of characteristics uniquely shared by all the things of the type being defined. The way this is done is to inspect as many things of that type as possible, and try to isolate just the combination of characteristics which is true of them and only them. This is a difficult thing to do even for objects we can inspect, like computers or chairs, but it is even tougher for abstract ideas such as religious beliefs.

What makes such definitions possible is that we can all recognize things to be of a certain type prior to being able to define the type precisely. We all know a lot of things are trees, for instance, long before we perform the difficult task of analyzing the set of features possessed by all trees, but only trees. So while the process of defining starts by examining an initial list of things of the type to be defined, we need not examine all of them in order to formulate their definition. Indeed, we could not do so because we would already need to have a definition in order to decide whether to include or exclude any controversial or borderline case. So defining starts by examining a list of the things to be defined that leaves out controversial cases.

At first glance it seems an easy task to compile a relatively uncontroversial initial list of religions so as to look for a common element among their central beliefs. Virtually everyone would concede that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, along with Hinduism, Buddhism,1 and Taoism, can safely be placed on the list. Moreover, just about everyone thinks that the beliefs in the ancient Greek Olympian gods, the Greek mystery cults, the Roman pantheon, Egyptian polytheism, or ancient Canaanite belief in Ba’al were also religious. Nor does it seem objectionable that teachings which have never generated a large following can still count as religions—the ancient Epicurean beliefs and teachings about the gods, for example. In fact, there seems to be a fairly large initial “short list” of religions which further includes Druidism, the beliefs about Isis and Mithra, as well as the teachings of Zoroastrianism, Shintoi...