Is Religion Arrogant?

I recently listened to a debate between Christopher Hitchens and John Lennox, a prominent Christian apologist. One of Mr. Hitchen’s arguments went something like this: You claim to know the mind of God?! To have heavenly truth?! To know who hung the stars?! How could you possibly know that?! What inconceivable arrogance! We’re all in the dark, here, and you as much as any of us.

Arrogance and ad hominem

I can’t really refute this argument, because it isn’t really an argument; it’s more a statement of opinion. But I will point out a few things I find problematic with this line of reasoning.

First, this is an ad hominem argument. Hitler believed that Germany was northeast of France. Hitler was a terrible and (presumably) arrogant person. That didn’t make him wrong. My character, flawed as it is, has absolutely no bearing on the existence of God.

Second, you can’t judge a person’s character based on his factual disagreement with you. You judge a person’s character by the way he behaves. If the person you are talking to is gracious, humble, forgiving, kind, peace-loving, and self-controlled, you cannot answer his argument by calling him arrogant. If you are going to make an ad hominem argument, at least do your homework.

The proper study of mankind?

But of course, this really isn’t about logic. This is a moral admonishment: “know then thyself, presume not God to scan:/ the proper study of mankind is man.” The sort-of-argument behind this admonishment is the assertion that “we can’t know.” If there is a mind of God, it is inaccessible to us. How could we? To claim to understand it is merely arrogance masquerading as knowledge.

A couple of points on this:

First, the Norse and Greeks had no trouble accessing the minds of their gods, because their gods are simply larger-than-life humans. It is the monotheistic faiths who hold the mind of God in such high esteem. “Who has understood the mind of the Lord?” is a quote from the Bible. So we can’t assume that God is beyond human understanding; to do so is to claim to have knowledge about the sort of God we are talking about – and that’s exactly what you just said we can’t do!

Second, you don’t actually have to understand something to know it exists. Physics can’t actually ‘access’ quarks, or dark matter, or the big bang. But we can still deduce that they exist. If the universe began to exist, it had to have a cause outside itself. By all accounts of modern physics, it began to exist. So we already have an immensely powerful cause outside the universe (I’m not going to lay out the full argument here; people much more thoughtful than me have done so.). Arrogance plays no part in that simple logic chain.

Third, we are missing a very important point here. Suppose you and I are trying to decide where to go for dinner. And suppose you already know what you want. I could stare at you all evening and not figure out what it is. It would be arrogant of me to just assume I know – unless you tell me. As soon as you tell me what you want, it becomes arrogance on my part to refuse to listen, claiming that “I can’t possibly know” what you want (so we’d better just go with my preference).

The mind of Christ

The Bible says “’Who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.” We understand because he wishes us to. This is the argument of Christianity – that God has spoken to us “at many times, and in many ways,” and we have understood him not because we’re special or chosen or better, but because he designed all men to be in relationship with him. He calls to everyone. We do not order you to obey us because we know better; we rather invite you to listen for yourself.

I conclude with a quote from G.K. Chesterton, one of C.S. Lewis’s (and my) larger influences, on what Christian pride (and humility) really are:

In one way Man was to be haughtier than he had ever been before; in another way he was to be humbler than he had ever been before… All humility that had meant pessimism, that had meant man taking a vague or mean view of his whole destiny—all that was to go…Man was a statue of God walking about the garden. Man had pre-eminence over all the brutes; man was only sad because he was not a beast, but a broken god…Yet at the same time it could hold a thought about the abject smallness of man… When one came to think of one’s self, there was vista and void enough for any amount of bleak abnegation and bitter truth. There the realistic gentleman could let himself go—as long as he let himself go at himself… let him call himself a fool… but he must not say that fools are not worth saving… Here, again in short, Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious…One can hardly think too little of one’s self. One can hardly think too much of one’s soul.