the Bible was still used by Christians to justify the brutal slavery in the American South. Distinguished Princeton professor Charles Hodge defended American slavery in a 40 page essay written in 1860, just prior to the Civil War.

Apparently it’s just in poor taste and really just skirts around the edges to point out that contrary to the claims that some skeptics love to make, the Old Testament does not endorse what we call slavery. But I daresay that annoyance has clouded John’s vision, for what has been shown is that in fact God did condemn kidnapping and/or mistreating people, the very things that Loftus is concerned about and which he is calling “slavery.” it may be irritating to have the rug ripped out from under your argument, but getting annoyed and demanding that people deal with the “main” argument by pretending that the rug is still there (for the sake of your argument and nothing else) is a bit of an ask, don’t you think? Why not just graciously thank the other person for their helpful explanation and remove the argument from your repertoire?

Here's exhibit "A" of the backward thinking of some Christians. This is incredibly ignorant:

"So yes, I...am happy to be treated the same way women were in the Bible." Link

How much more ignorant can someone be? Although, her husband probably likes it! ;-)

Heh!

My quietism ended when current events taught me the dangers of religion. I had always known how religions, including Christianity, led to wars in the Middle East, Ireland, and so on. Many wars, of course, are not based on religion. Even religious wars result from non-religious forces as well. Nonetheless, it is hard to deny that many wars have been and continue to be fueled in large part by religious beliefs. It is no coincidence that terrorists are so often motivated by religion, since it is hard to get non-religious people to volunteer as suicide bombers. (76)

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In one of the definitive discussions of the issue, Philosophers Alvin Plantinga and Robert Pennock debated the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools of religiously pluralistic societies at the December 1998 meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association.

[The following is a crude rendition of the issues in the debate - read the debate here: Pennock's case and Plantinga's response]

It is widely held that it is inappropriate for public schools to teach that a particular religion is true given that a segment of children attending the school come from families that do not believe in that religion. What is less noticed is the converse. If the former is correct then it must equally be true that it is inappropriate for a public school to teach that a particular religion is false given that a number of children attending the school come from families that do believe in that religion. Evolution contradicts the teachings of some religions; hence, the question arises, should evolution be taught as uncontested truth?

Having just re-read this debate in preparation for a lecture I delivered last week on the topic, stumbling upon Dr Bob Brockie's piece, Take Nobody's Word for Anything, in the Dominion Post was intriguing; intriguing in how little he understood the issues involved and how he would manifest his own ignorance on the broader question of religion and Science for all in print. The number of straight-forward factual and Philosophical mistakes in one article was breathtaking.

At the heart of Brockie’s argument is a mistaken epistemology and fairly naïve Philosophy of Science. Brockie contends that “true scientists question all authority, trusting only to experimental and verifiable evidence”. However, if science is defined in these terms, science is an incoherent position. The claim that one should question all authority and trust only “experimental and verifiable evidence” is not itself an empirical claim. Hence, if the claim is true we should reject it because Brockie has not provided any “experimental and verifiable evidence” of its truth.

If scientists truly proceed on this assumption, their position will always be self-contradictory as to proceed on this assumption would lead to scepticism on all sorts of issues dear to Brockie’s heart. As a scientist, Brockie assumes that his senses are reliable and reason is a reliable method of getting at truth. Neither of these, however, can be verified experimentally by a non-circular argument. To verify anything, one needs to utilise one’s senses and reason from them, and hence, will presuppose the very sources under question.

However, the errors, myths and lack of verifiable evidence do not end here. Brockie began with the statement “Creationism is just a codeword for biblical Christianity.” This is mistaken. The term “creationism” normally refers to a particular theory of origins that holds the world was created a few thousand years ago in six 24 hour days (not seven as Brockie stated), and that the fossil record is the result of a worldwide flood.

To equate this with “biblical Christianity” is erroneous. First, many non-Christians, particularly Jews and Muslims, hold this theory. The story of Adam, Eve and Creation is shared by the three major monotheistic religions. Second, many Christian’s, even conservative evangelicals, do not accept creationism.

Creationism is premised on the assumption that the first two chapters of Genesis are literalistic history. Whether the genre of early Genesis is literal history is a hotly debated point in Biblical studies, one over which conservative scholars disagree.

Brockie ignored the subtle differences and issues and castigated Christianity as a whole, suggesting no rational person can believe in “answered prayer” a “virgin birth” or “life after death” much of his argument however consists of citing crude caricatures; such as, the claim Christians believe in the existence of “magic apples”.

Brockie’s central theme is the example of Isaac Newton. According to Brockie Newton believed the Latin slogan “Nullius in Verba” which Brockie translates as “take nobody's word for anything”. Apparently “then” as “now” scientists adopted a policy of questioning “all authority, trusting only to experimental and verifiable evidence.” A stance Brockie asserts is incompatible with Christianity.

In fact, Newton was a devout Christian who wrote theological tracts and believed in “answered prayer” and “life after death”. Moreover, in the preface to Newton’s Principia Mathematica, Roger Cotes notes that Newton’s research rested explicitly on theological assumptions. Newton, in fact, even appealed to direct action of God to solve problems within his theory. The picture Brockie paints is well out of accord with the facts.

Incidentally, the Royal Society’s own website states it was founded in 1660 and not 1663 as Brockie stated. Moreover, his translation of “Nullius in Verba” is mistaken. The phrase is an abbreviation of a quotation from Horace; the full translation is, “not compelled to swear to any master's words.” It does not advocate trusting no one, but rather praises objectivity; it the contention that one should be free to come to conclusions at odd with one’s political masters.

If we can learn anything from Brockie’s article it is that uninformed knee-jerk fundamentalists exist on both sides of this debate. The real informed debate on Evolution v Creationism in the public school system is far more nuanced and deserves to be heard; not caricatured, misrepresented and then dismissed on that basis.

Those of you who have followed my discussions with Peter Creswell on the history of Christianity and the relationship between faith and reason in the middle ages may find this article interesting.

The article is abridged below but is available in full here.

God’s Philosophers
How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science
James Hannam 2007

Dr Hannam has recently completed his Ph.D. on the History of Science at the University of Cambridge.

Some extracts:

Rethinking Science in the Middle Ages
The most famous remark Sir Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727) made is, “If I have seen a little further then it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” What most of us assume he meant is that his scientific achievements were built on the discoveries of his predecessors. In the same passage, he alludes to René Descartes (1596 – 1650), the French philosopher and mathematician, so presumably this is one of those whom he meant. Few people realise, however, that Newton’s aphorism was first coined in the twelfth century by the theologian Bernard of Chartres (d. c. 1130). Even fewer are aware that Newton’s science also has its roots embedded firmly in the Middle Ages.

This book will show just how much of the science and technology that we take for granted today has medieval origins.

....

During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church actively supported a great deal of science, which it also kept control of when speculation could impinge on theology. Ironically, by keeping philosophers focused on nature instead of metaphysics, even the limitations that the Church set may have benefited science in the long term. Furthermore and contrary to popular belief, the Church never supported the idea that the earth was flat, never banned human dissection, never banned zero and certainly never burnt anyone at the stake for scientific ideas. The most famous clash between science and religion was the trial of Galileo (1564 – 1642) in 1633. Academic historians are now convinced that this had as much to do with politics and the Pope’s ego as it did with science. I will examine the trial fully in the last chapter of this book when I will also explain how much Galileo himself owed to his medieval predecessors.

....

Popular opinion, journalistic cliché and misinformed historians notwithstanding, recent research has shown that the Middle Ages were a period of enormous advances in science, technology and culture. The compass, paper, printing, stirrups and gunpowder all appeared in Western Europe between AD500 and AD1500.

True, these inventions originated in the Far East, but Europeans developed them to a far higher degree than had happened elsewhere.

....

The development of printing and paper meant that an incredible 20 million books were produced in the first fifty years after Johann Gutenberg had published his printed Bible in 1455. This dwarfed the literary output of the ancient world. Printing probably had an even greater effect than gunpowder, which, like the stirrup before it, revolutionised warfare and allowed Europeans to dominate the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, the people of medieval Europe invented spectacles, the mechanical clock, the windmill and the blast furnace by themselves. Lenses and cameras, almost all kinds of machinery, and the industrial revolution itself all owe their origins to the forgotten inventors of the Middle Ages. Just because we don’t know their names, does not mean that we should not recognise their achievements.

They lived much tougher lives than we do and we are the ones reaping the rewards for their hard work.

Most significantly, the Middle Ages laid the foundation for the greatest achievement of western civilisation, modern science. It is simply untrue to say that there was no science before the ‘Renaissance’. Once medieval scholars got their hands on the work of classical Greeks, they developed systems of thought that allowed science to travel far further than it had in the ancient world. Universities, where academic freedom was guarded against all comers, were first founded in the twelfth century. These institutions have always provided scientific research with a safe home. Even Christian theology turned out to be uniquely suited to encouraging the study of the natural world because it was believed to be God’s creation. Thus, my own research over the last decade has led me to believe that it is a gross injustice to label the Middle Ages as ‘stagnant’, ‘barbaric’, or ‘uncivilised’.

....

Watermills had existed in the ancient world but the Greeks and Romans never adopted them in large numbers. In the Early Middle Ages, they became increasingly common and the Domesday Book lists over 5,000. Tidal mills were adopted on suitable estuaries where a dam harnessed the high tide and released it through a channel containing a watermill. Finally, the first recorded European windmill sprouted in Yorkshire during the twelfth century and the idea quickly spread all over those parts of northern Europe where suitable rivers or estuaries were not available.
Taken together, these improvements in agriculture led to a population explosion. Estimates for the population of France and the Low Countries rise from three million in 650AD to 19 million just before the arrival of the Black Death in 1350AD. For the British Isles, the equivalent figures are 500,000 people and five million. In Europe as a whole, the population increased from less than 20 million to almost 75 million. These figures must be estimates, if not guesstimates, but the upward trend is clear. For comparison, at the height of the Roman Empire about 33 million people lived in Europe. Well before 1000AD, the population far exceeded what is was when the continent was ruled by Rome and remained above that level even after the Black Death had killed a third of the inhabitants of Europe in the fourteenth century.

....

In some ways, the medieval worldview was closer to ours than we sometimes imagine. For example, Gerbert and all his fellow men and women of any education in 1000AD were perfectly well aware that the Earth was a sphere. They also knew that the universe was very large compared to the Earth. As Boethius wrote in his Consolation of Philosophy:
It is well known and you have seen it demonstrated by the astronomers, that in comparison to the extent of the heavens, the circumference of the earth has the size of a point. That means that, compared to the heavenly sphere, the earth may be thought of as having no size at all.
Comments we hear today about people in the Middle Ages inhabiting a ‘poky little universe’ or believing that the Earth is flat are born of modern rather than medieval ignorance.

….

Another modern misconception about the medieval worldview is that people thought the central position of the Earth meant that it was somehow exulted. In fact, to the medieval mind, the reverse was the case. The universe was a hierarchy and the further from the Earth you got, the closer to Heaven you came. At the centre, underneath our feet, the Christian tradition placed Hell. Then, second worse only to the infernal pit was our Earth of change and decay. Above us, acting as a boundary between the earthly and the heavenly, was the sphere of the Moon. This marked the dividing line between the perfect unchanging heavens and the transient sub-lunar region containing ourselves, doomed to die. Next, there were the crystalline spheres of the seven planets – the Moon, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn – eternally orbiting with uniform circular motion. The spheres were thought to be made of a transparent and imperishable fifth element called ether or quintessence. Above them were the fixed stars whose positions relative to each other never appeared to change. Above even them was the firmament and beyond that, Christians like Gerbert imagined, was the realm of God. This hierarchical system gave people absolute directions of up and down, one towards the heavens and one down to Earth at the bottom of the celestial ladder. To move the Earth away from the centre of the universe was not to downgrade its importance but to raise it up towards the stars.

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Perhaps I am a glutton for punishment, but I have been having an interesting dialogue with Peter Creswell about the history of theology.

To sum up PC follows the 20th century novelist Ayn Rand. Rand's followers view Aristotle as the "father of the enlightenment," they appear to hold a view of history that is extremely common in popular history. The story goes like this: prior to the rise of Christianity was the "classical period" where science and reason flourished among the ancient greek thinkers (of which Aristotle is the par excellence). This learning was extinguished by the rise of Christianity, which hated reason and science in favour of a supersitious faith. This brought about a period called the 'dark ages' where all progress and science were suppressed. The discovery of Aristotle's works in the late middle ages changed this, people began following reason again and as a result liberated themselves from the shackles of dark age superstitions most notably Christianity. It was this liberation from religious supersition that brought about the rise of science, a rise contested unsucessfully by the Church, which resulted in the enlightenment where secularism prevailed. Such things as liberty and freedom come from the enlightenment, not from Christianity, which opposed it.

I have maintained for some time now that this story is mistaken and based on simplistic and often caricatured readings of the history of theology. PC on the other hand demurs, he thinks this is clearly true and anyone who thinks otherwise is simply spouting religious propaganda. The exchange is below. PC's comments are in italics my responses follow each one.

1. You see, at the root of the Enlightenment was the knowledge that reason is capable of explaining existence -- that is, that reason is our means of acquiring knowledge, and it is knowledge of this world, not of the next one. Knowledge of nature, not of “super-nature,” is that promotes life on earth.

Actually, no. Many of the major enlightenment figures did not limit reason to nature. Descartes’ defended the ontological argument, Locke, defended Christianity and theism and in fact his epistemology was motivated by the desire to be able to come to correct conclusions about God (this is according to what his friend wrote on one of the earliest manuscripts of Locke’s essay). Berkley was a theist who wanted to refute materialism, Hume’s religious affinities are a matter of debate but many view him as a theist or deist. Reid was a Presbyterian minister who wanted to use reason to fight skepticism about religion. Berkley defended the ontological and cosmological arguments and used reason to develop a theodicy. Kant wanted to make room for faith and immortality and defended the moral argument. Newton’s preface states that his basis for adopting the scientific method was theological (and anti-Aristotelian btw) and he developed his physics, in part, to defend the existence of God. I could go on.

Moreover, one of the major problems with the epistemology of the enlightenment (known as classical foundationalism) is that it had trouble providing a basis for knowledge of an external world. This is a central issue in Descartes through to Locke, Berkley, Hume, Reid, etc. Locke believed that much of what we perceive are secondary qualities, created by our mind. Hume took the skepticism to its conclusion. Berkley, Reid and Descartes appealed to theology to solve these skeptical problems. Kant used this skepticism to defend theology.

2. The fact is that since the rediscovery of Aristotle's writings, the Church has sought to reconcile reason and mysticism, and to appropriate the pagan Aristotle as some sort of patron saint.

Actually the project of using reason to defend, develop and refine faith predates Aristotle and goes all the way back to Philo of Alexandria. Then there are the early Church fathers like Justin (a Greek philosopher), Origen, Athanasius, Augustine, Athenagoras, Clement, Gregory of Nazianius, Basil, to name a few. Moreover, classical Greek philosophy and learning was promoted prior to Aquinas by people like Boethius, Isidore, Anselm, Bede, Peter Damian, Abelard and so on. Some early Christian thinkers were hostile to Greek Philosophy or hostile to it in certain contexts but many were not and the suggestion that the anti-philosophy camp was main-stream is simply false.

3 Aristotle's method of observation-based rationality was so utterly at odds with the religionist thinking that had dominated the Dark Ages, and was responsible for those Ages being Dark, that they struck even religious thinkers like a bombshell when they were rediscovered after a millennia of darkness.

Wrong again, Numbers and Lindberg note that recent historical research suggests that this portrayal of the early middle ages as “the dark ages” is a caricature. (David C Lindberg “The Medieval Church Encounters the Classical Tradition: Saint Augustine, Roger Bacon and the Handmaiden Metaphor” in When Science & Christianity Meet, ed. David C. Lindberg & Ronald L. Numbers (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2003) 7-8). A conclusion shared by the studies of Henri Pirenne (A History of Europe from the End of the Roman World in the West to the Beginning of Western States, (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1958)) and Marc Bloch (Feudal Society, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1961)) and Richard Hodge (“The Not So Dark Ages,” Archaeology 51 (September/October 1998).

Contemporary encycolpaedias bear this out; the 1975 New Columbia Encyclopaedia states that the term “dark ages” is no longer used by historians because this period is “no longer thought to have been so dim.’ Similarly the Encyclopaedia Britannica states the term “dark ages” is “now rarely used by historians because of the unacceptable value judgment it implies,” the term “dark ages” incorrectly implies this was “a period of intellectual darkness and barbarity.”

3 [W]hen the works of Aristotle—the master of natural science and secular philosophy—were rediscovered in 12th-century Islamic Spain, it is no mystery that Western European thinkers—after centuries of suppression and penury.

Actually the suppression of heretical views rarely occured in the, so called, dark ages. The early church supported freedom of religion until the fifth century when Augustine reluctantly supported suppression of the dontatists. Some Roman emperors put in place laws against heresy which were enforced sporadically in the late roman period (often with protests from the church) but these laws fell out of use and were not enforced in the period mistakenly called the dark ages.

It was not until after the 'dark ages' that heresy was suppressed by Inquisitional courts. In fact it was the heavily Aristotelian Dominican order which carried this suppression out and who justified it. This is all well documented in Joseph Lecler Toleration and the Reformation, trans. by TL Weslow (New York: Association Press, 1960); Edward Peter’s, Inquisition, (London: Collier Macmillan, 1981) and also by Stark (For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).

4. In fact the the scientific revolution came about because of a rejection of the Church's intellectual domination.

The thesis that the Church for centuries consistently suppressed science and prevented its flourishing (known as the conflict thesis) originates in two works, John Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874) and Andrew Dickson White in his book A History of The Warfare Between Science and Theology in Christendom. The conflict thesis is now widely rejected by historians of science. Several people such as Stanley Jaki, (The Road to Science and the Ways to God (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978)); Alfred Whitehead, (Science and the Modern World (New York: Macmillan, 1925); Peire Duhem, (L'Aube du savoir: épitomé du système du monde (histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic), ed. Anastasios Brenner, Paris, Hermann, selections from Duhem 1913-59). Michael Foster ("The Christian Doctrine of Creation and the rise of Modern Natural Science," Mind 43 (1934), 446–468 "Christian Theology and Modern Science of Nature (I)" Mind 44 (1935) 439–466; "Christian Theology and Modern Science of Nature (II)" Mind 45 (October, 1936), 1–27. Also, Reijer Hookykaas (Religion and the Rise of Modern Science (Grand Rapids, MI: William B Eerdmans, 1972) and Stark have all called this thesis into question and argued that Christian ways of understanding lead to the rise of Science.

Other’s, most notably Numbers and Lindberg, while not wanting to defend the claim that Christianity fostered the rise of Science, also question the conflict thesis. In an anthology they edited, entitled God and Nature, Numbers and Lindberg suggest a more nuanced thesis; that the relationship between theology and science has been too complex over the ages for either generalisation to be correct.

However both schools, as far as I can tell, reject Whites work as a piece of propaganda. As Collin Russel notes “Draper takes such liberty with history, perpetuating legends as fact, that he is rightly avoided today in serious historical study. The same is nearly as true of White, though his prominent apparatus of prolific footnotes may create a misleading impression of meticulous scholarship.” ("The Conflict of Science and Religion" in The Encyclopedia of the History of Science and Religion, New York 2000). John Hedley Brooke, the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford, writes in Science and Religion - Some Historical Perspectives (1991), “In its traditional forms, the [conflict] thesis has been largely discredited”. Similarly, Edward Grant Professor Emeritus of the History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University writes, “If revolutionary rational thoughts were expressed in the Age of Reason [the 18th century], they were only made possible because of the long medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important of human activities” In the same vein Steven Shapin Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego writes, "In the late Victorian period it was common to write about the 'warfare between science and religion' and to presume that the two bodies of culture must always have been in conflict. However, it is a very long time since these attitudes have been held by historians of science."

5. Need I mention Galileo? That Galileo saw Aristotle as an adversary was wholly due to the Church's appropriation of The Philsopher, but in evey important respect Galileo's method of observation-based rationality was Aristotle's, whether Galileo knew it or not.

Actually the Galileo example does not fit PC's picture. As William Shea notes Galileo was part of a Platonic revival in Florence. (“Galileo and the Church” in Ronald Numbers and David Lindberg (eds). God and Nature Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science ( Berkley: University of California Press, 1986) 124). He rejected an Aristoleian view of science in favour of a more Platonic view. As a result, Stillman Drake (Galileo (Oxford: Oxford University Press)) notes that Galileo’s strongest opponents were supporters of Aristotle and it was more his calling into question Aristotle that got him into trouble than his disagreements with the Church.

Interestingly, the Copernican theory that the earth revolves around the sun originates with fourteenth century theologians Burdian and Nicolas d'Oresme; their theories were based in part on Theological condemnations of Aristotelian Philosophy that had occurred in the previous century.

Finally Galileo in developing his views followed the teachings on religion and science propounded by “dark age” writer Augustine of Hippo.

Its amusing to see PC cite a Platonist anti-Aristotelian thinker persecuted by the Aristotelian scientists for following the views of science and religion expounded by a “dark age” philosopher as evidence that Aristotelian ways of thinking liberated science from the shackles of platonist and "dark age" theologians.

6. Newton is not revered for his mystic rambklings or his alchemy; he is revered because his physics integrated and explained such a wealth of actual observations of reality.

Newton’s physics in fact were based on the theological voluntarism of the late middle ages which rejected Aristotelian theories on the ground that God, being sovereign, freely choose the create the world. This is evident from the preface of Newton’s Principia.

7. Locke is revered not for wanting to exclude Catholics from the throne and supporting the suppression of atheists, but for explaining that the protection of individual rights is the only legitimate job of governments, and explaining and integrating the method by which individual rights are best protected.

Actually Locke’s argument in the The Two Treatises of Government is very different from this. Unlike so many Libertarians I encounter I have actually read the book several times. Locke, in fact, grounds rights not in the sovereignty of the individual but in the sovereignty of God. Moreover, his moral theory is based on the voluntarist accounts of natural law which were developed in opposition to Aristotelian natural law theory and which were based on theological concerns about Aristotle limiting God’s freedom and omnipotence.

8. Ockham and Scotus and Albertus Magnus are properly revered not because they were Christians, but for their enormous contributions to the popularisation of logic and reason in an age of Christian darkness.

Actually none of these thinkers lived in the so called "dark ages;" the first two you mention lived in the the later Middle Ages. Moreover, Scotus and Ockham in fact were voluntarists. Voluntarism was a movement based in part on the theological condemnations the Church had made of Aristotle. As Edward Grant notes, in many cases what we see is not Aristotle bringing light to a superstitious church but a Church offering theologically based objections to Aristotle and the scientific progress being the result of attempts to find theologically acceptable alternatives to Aristotle.

9. Aquinas is revered not because he was part of the newly founded the Dominican Order set up to combat heresy in Europe, but because he opened the door to intellectual freedom in the west, however inadvertently.

Unfortunately, again the facts do not support this. During the "dark ages" the official policy towards Jews pagans and heretics was de facto tolerance. As I noted most of the early church supported freedom of religion. It was the later middle ages which saw the establishment of Inquisitions to prosecute heresy. Interestingly, Aquinas supported these Inquistions and used his Aristotelian reason to defend them. However, Aquinas did support tolerating Jews and non-believers citing the authority of “dark age” theologians for support of his position.

In a recent issue of Salient Lindsay Perigo laments the “power wishful thinking”. Predictably he cites Christianity as a paradigm of such thinking. However, like many in the media who take swipes at orthodox or conservative expressions Christianity his analysis is superficial. Perigo writes.

Two thousand years of Christianity have been based on a lie, in which countless millions have blithely and willingly believed, notwithstanding its absurdity—in fact, because of its absurdity, as Tertullian proclaimed:
“The Son of God was born: there is no shame, because it is shameful. And the Son of God died: it is wholly credible, because it is inappropriate. And, buried, He rose again: it is certain, because impossible.”
He might have added: “and because something perverse in us makes us want to believe nonsense.”

Perigo here asserts that Christianity is absurd. Of course merely asserting some thing is absurd hardly constitutes a compelling objection to it. Perigo however suggests that, not only is Christianity absurd, but its practioners actually recognise it’s absurdity and believe because of it. The idea is that they deliberately go against what reason tells them and choose a path recognised as irrational He cites the famous “Credo quia absurdum” popularly attributed to Tertullian to substantiate this claim.

There are a couple of problems here: First, even if it’s true that one Theologian (Tertullian) has suggested that Christianity is absurd and commended belief in it for this reason it does not follow that all Christians or even many follow suit. To establish this Perigo would need to show that Tertullian’s position was the dominant mainstream one for most of Christian history. He does not even attempt to do so. Moreover, the suggestion Tertullains views, as Perigo interprets them was the mainstream views is very dubious .

Second, Perigo’s picture of Tertullian is inaccurate. Its was once common for people to Tertullian as a proponent of extreme fideism a position defined by Alvin Plantinga as “the exclusive or basic reliance upon faith alone, accompanied by a consequent disparagement of reason” and the “Credo quia absurdum” passage is the usual reason for this attribution of fideism to Tertullian.

The problems with the extreme fideist interpretation of Tertullian are nicely set out in an article by Robert Sider published in Classical World 73 (April-May 1980), pp.417-9. Sider notes two problems; first, the comment Credo quia absurdum is in fact a misquote and second, he notes that when understood in its context Tertullian was actually commending the Christian faith as rational and philosophically defensible. What Tertullian does in the passage Perigo cites is utilize a line of argument from Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Aristotle (who is something of a hero to Perigo) argues that if something is contrary to current expectations and highly improbable its unlikely that a rational intelligent person will believe it unless they actually witnessed it. Tertullian then is not saying we should believe what reason shows to be absurd because it is absurd. He is utilizing the best epistemological theories of his day to argue that belief in the Gospel is not absurd. Perigo relies on a popular but erroneous stereotype of Tertullian to make his point. A little reading on the issue would cleared have this up. In fact a Google search would have revealed it straight away.

After caricaturing Tertullian as an extreme fidest Perigo goes on to offer another caricature. He states

Taborites of Bohemia predicted that Christ would return to earth in February 1420. Believers in the prophecy braced themselves. ..As the date drew near, mass hysteria took hold, much as it is doing now over global warming. Expecting a huge flood, many people built boats or moved to higher ground. The flood never came. But all over the world, folk carried on believing whatever they wanted to believe.
The Puritans were especially enthused about an imminent apocalypse, notwithstanding Jesus’ singular failure to keep any of his previous appointments, and exported their enthusiasm to America, where it’s had a ready audience ever since.

Perigo cites the example of the Taborites a millennial sect who falsely predicted the imminent return of Christ. Perigo then suggest that Puritans held the same view and imported it to America and hence to contemporary American evangelicals. This is dubious In a study of Puritan Eschatology entitled The Puritan Hope Iain Murray notes that mainstream Puritan Eschatology was not millennial. Looking, at primary sources he argued that the Puritans developed the position that Christ’s return was not imminent the world had to be converted and the institutions of the world Christianised before Christ would return. Nor is it true that the Puritans view has had “wide audience ever since” in fact most American evangelicals today do not except Puritan eschatology ( some would say to their detriment).

Apart from caricature Perigo does provide the occasional argument for his claim that Christianity is absurd. He notes that “in her newly-released letters that Mother Teresa felt she was praying to no one all those years might give [Christians] some cause for pause” but why should it? Does the fact that a prominent apologist of Atheist Anthony Flew relatively recently decided that his advocacy of atheism for numerous years was mistaken and that a God exist give Perigo pause.

Perigo then notes that Kerry Packer after being dead for 15 minutes testified that “there’s nothing there” but again one wonders why this should bother Christians. Christianity teaches a resurrection of the dead at the parousia not popular the stories associated with “near death experiences” the movie ghost or the TV series Medium.

Perigo often says some thoughtful and interesting things. On theology and religion however he does not. Like most in the media he simply spouts stereotypes provides facile arguments and backs this up with ad hominem abuse.