Wednesday, September 23, 2009

not nice


James Wood, criticizing both the New Atheists and some of their critics (including the literary critic Terry Eagleton) says their God-- the one they disbelieve in-- is too literal, too much like Santa in the clouds. Real believers believe in something more abstract and subtle and ethereal, less substantial and anthropomorphic. That, and the non-literal value of religious ritual and "mythos" (as opposed to "logos"), is Karen Armstrong's line in her new Case for God, too.

Doesn't this run the risk of vaporizing God into something too thin to grasp, even imaginatively?That's the old knock on the "god of the philosophers."

But if you make Him too "real," there's another risk: you won't like him. That's the upshot, for many, of considering Leibniz's theodicy and the problem of evil. Does anyone want to worship and pray to a control freak?

1 comment:

stephen king said...

personally i already believe god is something to thin to grasp. i don't believe in god but for those that do i would suspect that it must feel kinda like beilieving in a mageic trick. Very mythical and not logical because from what we discerned through solomon and higgins text it wouldn't be logical for a omnipent or omniscent creater only a god similar to a diest view.

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