Religion is an ancient, widespread, and persistent aspect of human culture. It's importance and role in human history cannot be underestimated; because of all this, it makes sense to study it in order to better understand it. How should religion be studied, though? Some argue that we should do so scientifically, just like we study everything else. Some believers, though, find this objectionable.

Prospect Magazine carries and exchange of letters between Daniel Dennett and Richard Swineburne, during which Swineburn lets loose with this winner:

[Y]ou suggest in your new book Breaking the Spell that we should investigate religion “with the presumption that it is an entirely natural phenomenon.” Such a presumption needs to be justified. If there is a God, then all regular processes—codified by physics, biology, psychology or whatever—occur because of the sustaining activity of God and so are “supernatural” (even if God never intervenes). So the first thing is to investigate “scientifically” whether or not there is a God.

Given the fact that every other aspect of human experience is studied as a natural phenomenon, it’s not up to the scientists to justify doing the same with religion. At the very least, this should be our starting point — if and when it’s made clear that the naturalistic perspective is inadequate (which would be a first in all human study), then we can consider alternatives.

To insist that the standard, reliable methodology be justified with religion is a form of special pleading and begging the question. As a “philosopher,” Swineburne should be familiar with such logical fallacies and should realize that he can’t justify treating religion as special when that’s precisely the sort of thing which must be demonstrated through careful study.

Furthermore, notice how quickly Swineburn elides from “religion” in the general sense to talking about “God,” an object of a few particular religious traditions — including his own, which I am sure is no coincidence. Swineburne is essentially insisting that a general study of religion as a human phenomenon cannot proceed unless researchers determine whether one particular dogma of his religion is true or not. Just how arrogant can a single person be? Religion is more than belief in Swineburne’s god; if he was the least bit fair and objective, he’d understand and acknowledge this.

One or the other can’t be true, though, because he immediately proceeds to do it again:

The most important of these observable phenomena which theism can explain is that there is a large physical universe, that everything behaves in it in a totally regular way, that the boundary conditions of the universe and the laws of nature are such as to lead to the evolution of human bodies, and that human bodies are connected to conscious lives. There is not the slightest reason to suppose that these phenomena will occur unless a theory somewhat like theism is true...

Swineburne is trying to make a claim about his religion and his form of theism — a belief system that involves quite a lot more than simply belief in the existence of some sort of god. Instead of being that specific, though, he talks about “theism” generally, and what he says here isn’t true of theism generally: mere belief in the existence of god isn’t a “theory” or “philosophy” or “explanation” that can explain the things he asserts. At best, a particular religion that includes theism might.

Why does Swineburne make this “mistake”? I think that the answer is pretty simple: Swineburne is trying to defend his particular religious beliefs but he knows that nothing in science or philosophy can do the job. Instead, he tries to use science and philosophy to defend a very general sort of theism that has been stripped of most traditional Christian dogmas — but he can’t avoid continued references to those dogmas because they are, after all, the core of his beliefs which he wants to defend.

Thus, he uses the language of general, non-specific theism even while continually referencing the dogmas, doctrines, and beliefs of a his particular religion. The consequence is that his words and his concepts don’t match — for example, his concept of a “theory...which purports to explain everything” doesn’t match his general language of “theism.” This renders his claims false right from the beginning and by definition, before we even consider looking for evidence or arguments on their behalf.

The question becomes, then: if Richard Swineburne can’t be consistent and honest in the claims he is making, why should anyone pay any attention to what he says?

 

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