Robert Bellah has written what can only be described as his “Magnus opus”. It is entitled, Religion in Human Evolution and it has caused a reaction on the part of Christian theologians. One of these writers, Paul Griffiths, chair of Catholic Theology at Duke Divinity School, has claimed that humans will have to choose between the academic version of history and Christian faith. He refers to this Hobson’s choice as “impossible pluralism”.
I don’t buy it. We live in a pluralistic society. Our institutions from the university to the military are studiously pluralistic and while our faiths influence the secular society, no one faith, not even the presently dominant faith of Christianity can be established as the universal religion for America.
And yet, even our church and synagogue related universities teach a universal academic history. This does not mean that faith causes us to lack intellectual integrity. Quite the opposite should be the case. Honest faith requires its adherents to seek the truth even if that becomes inconvenient or challenges our beliefs.
What has occurred recently in religious circles is an insistence on dogmatic certainty, which brooks no doubt or questioning. This is intellectual and relational suicide. Too many people with questions and doubts are shouted down and not permitted to question the precepts of the faiths. Give me an honest doubter and a seeker with integrity that comes down on the side of unbelief rather than a lukewarm believer who questions nothing and accepts everything. Eventually that person will crash and their faith disappear as they face something they cannot explain.
True faith not only allows for intellectual exploration, but insists on it and welcomes the challenge that new discoveries awaken.
A friend of my wife’s who passed away a few years ago, served as an Episcopal bishop’s resident theologian. He always said that he missed a good argument with an avowed atheist. It was more honest than a discussion with someone just going through the motions of faith.
It seems obvious that we do not have to choose between faith and intellectual integrity, but what do you think?
chaplaintomdoc 