But why does Nielsen reject the religious perspective on life and the universe? According to his arguments, in the philosophically mature traditions of Western monotheistic faiths, the concept of God is simply incoherent:
- ”As we move away from anthropomorphism to claims that God is Unlimited, the Ultimate Being transcendent to the universe, we no longer understand to whom or to what the term “God” refers. If we try to think literally here we have no hold on the idea of a “being or Being that is transcendent to the universe.” And to try to treat it metaphorically is (a) to provoke the question what it is a metaphor of and (b) to lose the putatively substantive nature of the claim. ...So construed, there could be no standing in the presence of God, no divine encounters, and no experiencing God in our lives. With anthropomorphism, we get falsification and superstition — God is taken to be some mysterious and elusive entity or existent; without anthropomorphism, where God is said not to exist, i.e., to not be an existent, but to be eternal Ultimate Being, we get at least apparent incoherence.”
Although much of his book it taken up by further explanations and defenses of this view, Nielsen does not want to give the impression that naturalism is simply about attacking religion. On the contrary, he tries to emphasize the principle that to be a consistent naturalist, one must work from the naturalistic standpoint in all realms of life. Or, to use his own words, one must be a “secularist all of the way down.”
This is an important principle because it simply isn’t true that all atheists are also naturalists. Many who don’t believe in any gods continue to believe in non-natural entities (like ghosts and souls) or non-natural processes (like astrology or parapsychology). Even if their atheism is based upon a naturalistic approach, that same approach is not applied consistently to other questions they encounter. In the end, then, they may have much more in common with theistic religionists than with naturalistic atheists.
Nielsen’s explanation and defense of naturalism is an important work in the field. He addresses many of the most common and most articulate challenges which have posed to naturalism through the 20th century — including what he considers the strongest challenge, that posed by the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein.
So if you often find yourself trying to explain and defend naturalism, this is probably a book you should have handy: you will find a lot in here which will be useful and helpful. However, it is written in a way which will prove difficult to those without much of a background in philosophy — it is, to put it bluntly, a difficult read and not for everyone.
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