I finally read THE PROBLEM OF GOD—a neglected classic by the great Jesuit theologian and political thinker John Courtney Murray (1904-67). Here’s the contribution Murray makes to our understanding of postmodern conservatism or postmodernism rightly understood.
Distinctively modern thought is constituted by a will to atheism. That will to freedom understood as complete autonomy is prior to any modern science or theorizing. Modern man (and woman) fell in love with himself or what he creates for himself. He aimed to will into being an anthropocentric world, a world made up of free beings who no longer have any need for God or anything given. Modern man was determined to impose his will on nature, to create a world worthy of who he is.
The modern will to atheism has displayed itself in three ways. The first Murray calls “aristocratic atheism.” That’s the intention of a philosophical elite to explain everything without the “hypothesis” of God. The inability of aristocratic atheism to achieve definitive success produced “bourgeois atheism.” Its intention was to show that people could live happily and comfortably without God. But, as Rousseau, Marx, and Freud (among others) showed, bourgeois men and women are in certain ways more anxious and miserable than people have ever been. The failure of bourgeois atheism produced “political atheism”—the effort to impose a wholly secular political unity upon naturally anarchistic beings. Political atheism was the remedy of the Jacobin French republicans, as it was, in different ways, of the German Nazis and the Soviet Communists. These forms of atheism have a definite logical relationship: The movement is from the relatively theoretical efforts of the aristocratic atheists to the intensely practical or wholly willful and ruthlessly forcible efforts of the political atheists. But all three forms of atheism exist simultaneously in the modern world. So it wouldn’t have surprised Murray to see, with the collapse of Communism as the extreme or logically consistent form of political atheism, revivals of aristocratic and bourgeois atheism. Our basically neo-Darwinian “new atheists”—such as Dawkins and Dennett—are really aristocratic atheists. They believe that they can explain everything without God, and that our real problem is that fundamentalist Americans are too dumb and scared to affirm their wisdom. We also have our “bourgeois bohemian” atheists, who claim to have made bourgeois success compatible with personal self-fulfillment.
And we even have our Rawlsians or soft political atheists. They say that religion is nothing but a private fantasy that has no place in “public reason.” They wouldn’t kill those who speak as if God is real, but they would marginalize or ostracize them.
It’s Sartre—or the insistent existentialist—who saw, according to Murray, the truth about modern atheism. It’s rejection of all natural and divine order in favor of the unlimited human will is basically absurd. Sartre still affirms the absurdity as definitive evidence of our freedom from all "essential" determination except our own, arbitrary impositions There’s something quite Biblical, Murray observes, in Sartre’s thought that the willful rejection of God culminates in absurdity.
For Murray, postmodernism begins by a decision against willful atheism, a decision that’s quite reasonable in view of the obvious failure of every modern effort to solve or explain away or willfully negate the problem of God. Modern human beings, as Pascal saw at the modern world’s beginning, are miserably anxious—or experience themselves as absurd leftovers–in the absence of God, partly because that absence is only willed or not real or merely a diversion from what we really know.
January 2nd, 2009 | 2:09 am
This seems to be an argument for the utility of theism rather than an argument against the veracity of atheism. I’m a lot less interested in whether or not it’s “nicer” to be theistic than I am in what actually is. One can single out atheists that one finds unpleasant all you want, but it has no bearing on the truth behind god claims.
January 2nd, 2009 | 3:01 am
Have we also failed to solve or explain away or willfully negate the problem of invisible pink unicorns? I’m just curious.
It’s not pleasant when most of the people around you take the old book of Jewish fairy tales too seriously. Wilkinson posted about the relative happiness of atheists a couple months ago.
January 2nd, 2009 | 4:18 am
I think the best I can do to understand Postmodern Christianity is via its concept of weak theology: “a manner of thinking about theology from a deconstructive point of view.” (from the Wikipedia article)
This brand of Christianity seems to have its fans, just like Christian rock.
January 2nd, 2009 | 5:44 am
They say that religion is nothing but a private fantasy that has no place in “public reason.”
If this statement is false, how is the state supposed to evaluate the truth claims of various religions? What happens when I claim that it is holy sacrament in my church to slaughter chickens in a particular way / consume peyote / be naked in public / have sex in public / have sex with minors?
It’s a lot safer to establish a state on various basic moral principles that can be debated on their merits — protection of children vs personal freedom, the right to keep one’s own income vs. the obligation to care for each other, etc. Religion can and does inform how people weigh these principles. But once you start saying that the law needs to be a certain way because (your) God said so, you’ve really given up the basic premise of the Enlightenment.
January 2nd, 2009 | 6:08 am
Excellent post. Must read Fr. Murray, sounds rather Voegelinian.
The Soviet system, as an example of 20th century ideologies, prohibited the “quest for truth,” and portrayed itself as an “all-encompassing system”
that sought the destruction of Western civilization. In excluding the question of God and the reduction of philosophy the Soviets sought to achieve the immanetization of man.
While Sarte’s insight was spot on we must remember that his philosopical “movement” was not directed to the divine ground, rather the “moi,” which is just another method of destroying reason and reality. And this elevation of the ego is the basis of atheism’s failure. Who among the postmoderns might recognize this problem?
January 2nd, 2009 | 10:23 am
“Modern human beings, as Pascal saw at the modern world’s beginning, are miserably anxious–or experience themselves as absurd leftovers–in the absence of God, partly because that absence is only willed or not real or merely a diversion from what we really know.”
No they don’t. I know lots of people who aren’t miserably anxious. I know some people who are, but that’s not because they don’t believe in God.
I really don’t understand how anyone could think this. It’s just flat out not true. I know in certain branches of the ivory tower the idea that atheism leads to existential angst is rather fashionable but even the most closeted theologian has to go outside and buy a coffee occasionally, surely? Or go jogging? And see plenty of non-miserable atheists?
January 2nd, 2009 | 10:51 am
I should certainly read this. But I can think of two immediate problem with the argument.
First, seems to conflate theism with traditional religion. Most protagonists of at least the first two waves of atheism did not think of themselves as atheists. They thought of themselves as critics of superstition and dogmatism, which would all the better allow them to defend true or natural religion. In most cases, the justification for this position was not metaphysical amour de soi. It was epistemological and political contradictions of Western Christianity, which for various reasons became intolerable in the 16th century.
Second, as Neuroskeptic and Paul suggest, Murray’s view sounds pretty Epicurean. Whether or not it’s true, the argument from the misery of disenchantment to the choice of faith is still focused on human will to satisfy human need.
One might characterize the postmodern condition as one in which it’s very difficult, without serious cognitive dissidence, to regard revealed teachings as simply true. Would it be wrong to say that Murray agrees with that?
January 2nd, 2009 | 10:52 am
Sorry, should have said modern, not postmodern, in the last graph.
January 2nd, 2009 | 11:53 am
Thanks to Robert and Sam for their unwillful or postmodern responses–which I will get to later. Sam, I think, is right about the modern condition or pretense. “I should certainly read this” is, of course, what you all should have said. Paul, I didn’t mean to make an argument from utility at all, I just wanted to say all the evidence suggests that the problem is still with us. The “Jewish fairy tale” comment is nothing but modern aristocratic atheism–willful snottiness without any real argument. The thought that our misery without God is readily cured by the chemicals remedies of coffee or jogging is “bourgeois bohemian” atheism. Joggers don’t look so happy to me; otherwise, I might join them. And coffee is less mood control than a desperate way (believe me, I know) to let moods unnaturally run amok. Weak theology–in my view–is also characteristically modern–such as the theology of Locke, Jefferson, and today’s New Agey Unitarian/Episcopalians. It’s basically also bourgeois bohemian. So I’m perplexed by all these modern comments on a “postmodern conservatism” blog, which is not to say, of course, that I’ve proven any of them untrue.
January 2nd, 2009 | 1:57 pm
I know that Peter wasn’t intentionally making a theistic argument based on utility but still, we often have a tendency to dismiss that line as theoretically empty though it can actually be instructive. If at the heart of the modern project is a radically new reconception of the individual who is either radically at home in nature or capable of making nature hospitable through technological means then the failure of that project tells us something about the kinds of beings we are. Tocqeville described the eros for personal transcendece towards the divine as an “invincible inclination”, one written into our nature in a way that simply couldn’t be erased…this brand of longing isn’t demonstrable evidence of God, but it is, at the very least, suggestive of some of the limitations on a purely atheistic account of human life and experience. Muchh of the New Agey religious stuff, which Tqville discussed as pantheism, is borne of out an attempt to square our deeply human spiritual needs with a modern worldview largely hostile to them..to reflect on the stubborn resistance of those needs to either elimination or satisfaction by other means, or to reflect on what counts as “utility” for us, is to reflect on the nature of our being and the way that nature points beyond itself…anyway, the book, I think, is Murray at his best
January 2nd, 2009 | 2:28 pm
The big point for me here is that Freud (and Nietzsche) were right about suffering and misery, and that the cashout for anxious moderns is a therapy of ACTING in a way happy people supposedly act in order to prove that they are FEELING happy. This is not a silly concept, and not just atheist bourgeois types have recognized its power and implemented it accordingly. But there is something extra silly about the way in which all those passing joggers, for instance, seem to simultaneously have so much and so little invested in their happy-habit. The embarrassment of our anxious moderns is that we have lowered the stakes among some long-important things so as to raise the stakes among trivial things. It might be a WORKABLE tradeoff for some extended period of time, but the real issue is whether it’s WORTH keeping up the effort…or how much of a choice we have about it. Also, the point about these sorts of problems totally preceding the modern scientific project seems huge.
January 2nd, 2009 | 2:48 pm
“aristocratic atheism.” That’s the intention of a philosophical elite to explain everything without the “hypothesis” of God.
well, except for problems with dark matter, dark energy and a workable quantum theory of gravity, they have. There is not a single issue where the hypothesis that goddidit has been useful.
“bourgeois atheism.” Its intention was to show that people could live happily and comfortably without God.
I do very nicely, thanks. But more importantly, correlation does not equal causation. Some of the happiest people I know are as dumb as posts. So, to make more humans happy, the state should pass around lobotomies?
It’s a lot easier to be happy if one has Faith. God will provide; if he doesn’t, then He works in mysterious ways. Personal responsibility is much more tiring.
January 2nd, 2009 | 5:18 pm
“And we even have our Rawlsians or soft political atheists. They say that religion is nothing but a private fantasy that has no place in “public reason.” They wouldn’t kill those who speak as if God is real, but they would marginalize or ostracize them.”
As an attribution of views to Rawls, this is spectacularly false, and seems to me to indicate that the author hasn’t actually _read_ any Rawls.
January 2nd, 2009 | 8:18 pm
“The thought that our misery without God is readily cured by the chemicals remedies of coffee or jogging is “bourgeois bohemian” atheism.”
Well then chalk me up as a bourgeois bohemian atheist. :P
What I was saying was that people aren’t, on the whole, miserable – no more so than they always have been, anyway.
I think what many intellectuals find it hard to understand is that most people aren’t intellectuals. I’ll admit to spending hours biting my nails over the problem of free will, and a lot of philosophers would too, but I realise that this makes me, and philosophers, pretty unusual by normal standards. I hope I don’t come across as elitist when I say that most of what intellectuals, philosophers and theologians talk about would leave 99% of people cold. Most people’s happiness is centered around their family, their friends, their health and their work. Most people, religious or not, don’t think about God much, and are better for it.
January 3rd, 2009 | 1:50 pm
I’m sticking with my statement of a key Rawlsian tendency, and I’ve read Rawls, if only to find out what the cool kids think they know. The same tendency is expressed more honestly and ironically by Rorty. Rorty, of course, outed the utter conventionalism or basic willfulness of Rawlsian liberalism. And Rorty knew that as a self-proclaimed postmodern bourgeois liberal he was not really postmodern. Neuroskeptic may well know himself, although, and this is praise, he seems more of an aristocratic than bourgeois atheist to me. So does Francis, who forgot to talk about what people say and do. All these guys may or may not be conservative, but they’re certainly not postmodern.
January 3rd, 2009 | 3:29 pm
The key move with Rawls is not — decidedly not — that religious premises are _false_, mere “fantasies” to be played with only safely in private. It is that such premises, where they are not shared — that is, where they are not part of the “overlapping consensus” — are thus inappropriate for deployment in the political sphere. Religious doctrines are just of a piece with _all_ comprehensive doctrines, including, say, atheistic forms of ethics such as utilitarianism. There is no special negative or positive status that adheres to religious views _qua_ religious views in Rawls’ framework, and, again, certainly no such status in virtue of their being considered a “private fantasy”.
(Fwiw, when I said “the author” in my earlier comment I had in mind Murray, not you, as I thought that the bit on Rawls was taken from him; though looking back at the main post now I see that that would not have made sense, chronologically.)
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